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The Folger Shakespeare Library has the world's largest collection of materials relating to Shakespeare and his works, from the 16th century to the present day, as well as a world-renowned collection of books, manuscripts, and prints from Renaissance Europe. The Library actively acquires new materials that build on the strengths of the collection. In the Folger’s state-of-the-art conservation lab, conservators prepare collection material for exhibition and for hands-on study by researchers.

To learn more about the Folger’s collection, please visit their website.

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Documents contributed by Folger Shakespeare Library

1599
Sometime after Sir George Buc, the future Master of the Revels, purchased the anonymous play George a Greene, Pinner of Wakefield shown here, he added two manuscript notes to the title page.
1599
This 1599 printing is the only surviving copy of the sixth edition of Venus and Adonis, first published in 1593.
1599
The title page of the second edition of Henry IV Part 1 identifies William Shakespeare as the play’s author for the first time in print. The practice of including authorial attribution on title pages was becoming increasingly common at the turn of the century.
1600
Not all contemporary allusions to Shakespeare were positive. In the second stanza of Tom-Tel Troths Message (1600), John Lane commands his pen to “In mournfull verse lament the faults of men,” particularly in England.
1600
Englands Helicon, a collection of poetry first printed in 1600 by John Roberts for John Flasket, includes a sonnet from act 4, scene 3 of Love’s Labor’s Lost (1598). The poem in Englands Helicon is ascribed to “W.

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