Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.
Tempest, Act I Scene 2
For most of its 400 years, the Durham First Folio, a copy of William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, led an unremarkable life. First it was part of John Cosin’s own book collection, and later it was put in the public library that Cosin – as Bishop of Durham – founded on Palace Green in Durham in 1669.
By the time Shakespeare’s plays were published in 1623, theatre had become quite fashionable, especially at the royal court. It therefore paid to be able to talk about the most popular plays if you wanted to get the king’s attention. The earliest owners of First Folios were mostly nobles, lawyers, clergymen, and civil servants. Like many others, Cosin was keen to advance his religious and political career, and so it is perhaps no surprise that he bought a copy of the plays as well. We don’t know when he did, but it must have been before the publication of the Second Folio in 1632.
Although Cosin’s Library is full of textbooks for the study of theology, law, and history, Bishop Cosin also included a small selection of literary works. We know this from the library catalogue written in 1670. Apart from Shakespeare’s works in folio (the term relates to how the pages were printed, and the paper folded, to make the book), he once owned plays by John Ford, the Italian playwright Giovanni Guarini, as well as John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont, two playwrights who were just as popular at the time as Shakespeare. Because many were quite thin and small books, they have not survived the centuries as well as Shakespeare’s Folio or the other large volumes.
To judge from the titles in the catalogue, Cosin was partial to a good tragedy but liked the occasional comedy as well. For his new public library, Cosin did not update his Shakespeare plays with the Third Folio, published in 1664 with more plays and better versions of the text (or so the publisher said). Because the First Folio was not yet the iconic object it is today, why Cosin did not buy the latest edition will have to remain a mystery.
Cosin generally did not leave notes in his books, and the Durham First Folio is no different. A few scribbles (which Cosin may not have written), but no funny doodles, shopping lists, muddy cat paws, or wine stains. As far as we know, to Cosin, the First Folio was just one book of the many books he selected to furnish his exquisite library.
Apart from being the only copy of the book that has been in single ownership for most of its existence, there was little that was unusual about Durham’s copy of the First Folio. Nonetheless, unlike in Cosin’s day, when Shakespeare was one of many fashionable playwrights and actors, over time ‘the Bard’ became the iconic figure he is today, while most of his fellow authors and actors have been long forgotten. The First Folio – the first edition of Shakespeare’s collected plays – is now a very desirable object. Anyone who owns one is proud of it, and Durham University counts itself lucky to have one in its collections at the Palace Green Library.