We were overwhelmingly fortunate to be permitted to visit the vault at the Folger Shakespeare Library yesterday. Here are some of the treasures we saw: Tthe first and oldest known printed reference to Shakespeare.
A First Folio from 1623, with the famous wood cut of Shakespeare.
Queen Elizabeth's own personal (!) copy of one of the earliest editions of the bible written in English. A
An expurgated version of Shakespeare, where the deletions had been made by a monk who was from the Jesuits.And, one of my favorites, the stage directions for Paul Robeson's production of Othello in 1930. He did it in London because a black man couldn't do it on stage in the US at that time.
