William Shakespeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, died at the age of 52 on April 23, 1616. Seven years later, in 1623, two of his friends, the actors John Heminges and William Condell, oversaw the production of a large volume titled “Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies.” This year, 2023, thus marks the 400th anniversary of the First Folio, the nickname for that memorial collection of 36 plays. Roughly half of them, including “Macbeth,” “Antony and Cleopatra” and “Twelfth Night,” might have been lost to the world because their texts can be found nowhere else. The others, often differing in numerous details, first appeared in the 1590s and early 1600s as cheap pamphlets called quartos.
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