Awards
- Winner of Shortlisted, Shakespeare's Globe Book Award.
- Winner of Winner, Shakespeare's Globe Book Award.
Overview
In 1623 a team of stationers published what has become the most famous volume in English literary history: William Shakespeare's First Folio. Who were these publishers and how might their stories be bound up with those found within the book they created? Ben Higgins offers a radical new account of the First Folio by focusing on these four publishing businesses that made the volume. By moving between close scrutiny of the Folio publishers and a wider view of their significance within the early modern book trade, Higgins uses Shakespeare's stationers to explore the 'literariness' of the Folio; to ask how stationers have shaped textual authority; to argue for the interpretive potential of the 'minor' Shakespearean bookseller; and to examine the topography of Shakespearean publication. Drawing on a host of fresh primary evidence from a wide range of sources, including court records, manuscript letters, bookseller's bills, and the literature itself, Shakespeare's Syndicate illuminates our understanding of how this landmark volume was made and what it has meant to scholars since. Moreover, it models exciting new ways of working with stationers and of reading the event of early modern publication itself. This innovative study demonstrates that despite four hundred years of history, the volume at the centre of Shakespeare's canon continues to generate new stories.
Full Product Details
Author: Ben Higgins (Career Development Fellow in English Literature, Departmental Lecturer in English Literature, University of Oxford)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 16.40cm
, Height: 2.40cm
, Length: 24.00cm
Weight: 0.686kg
ISBN: 9780192848840
ISBN 10: 0192848844
Pages: 310
Publication Date: 10 March 2022
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Ben Higgins has managed something we might have thought was by now impossible: he tells a completely fresh and fascinating story about the First Folio. Higgins's remarkable knack for uncovering new archival details gives us the deepest scholarly investigation yet undertaken into the lives of the men and women who produced Shakespeare's collected works. At the same time, Higgins uses each of the Folio publishers as a lens to reveal broader trends and networks in the book trade, offering an exciting and generative methodology for others to follow. Shakespeare's Syndicate is required reading for anyone interested in Shakespeare, his plays, and his life and afterlife in print. * Zachary Lesser, Edward W. Kane Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania *
Author Information
Ben Higgins read English at the University of Exeter before going to the University of Oxford for postgraduate work. He has held lectureships at Wadham College, Lincoln College, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is currently Career Development Fellow in English Literature at Lady Margaret Hall.
