"This wide-ranging collection reflects on the various motivations that caused the Folio to come into being in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, and on how the now iconic book has been continually reimagined after its initial publication to the present day. Bringing together a set of ground-breaking essays by international scholars, chapters consider reader-assembled volumes as precursors to the Folio; the poetic identity of Shakespeare; and how crises and successes in the early modern printing house shaped Shakespeare's text. Others examine its often surprising afterlives, and how it became the basis of Shakespeare's unique position in literary history"--
