Folio (printing) - Shakespeare Folios

Shakespeare Folios

From the earliest days of printing, folios were often used for expensive, prestigious volumes. In the Seventeenth Century, plays of the English Renaissance theatre were printed as collected editions in folio. Thirty-six of Shakespeare's plays, for example, were included in the First Folio collected edition of 1623, which was followed by additional folio editions, referred to as the Second Folio, etc. Other playwrights in this period also published their plays in folio editions, such as Ben Jonson's collected works of 1616.

See further:

• English Renaissance theatre
• Early texts of Shakespeare's works
• False folio