What is the importance of the First Folio, containing 36 of Shakespeare’s plays?
Obviously, without the First Folio we may never have been able to read half of his work, plays like Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra, The Tempest and Coriolanus. I see it, along with the King James Bible, as the most important book of the English Renaissance. Q: His play, Cardenio, was performed in his life but has since been lost. What do we know about it, and is there any way of recreating it? A: No, there is no way to “recreate” it. We know it was based on some material in Cervantes but not any details of its turn from narrative to drama. Lewis Theobald in the early 18th century published a play, The Double Falsehood, which may have been based on the play Shakespeare co-wrote with his younger contemporary John Fletcher. Of course, as with the new production of a play by Charles Mee and Stephen Greenblatt, one can always write a play using some of the same materials Shakespeare used. Q: In the last few years many critics have begun to reassess a play called Edward III, currently grou
