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Shakespeare work fills literary event

By Christian Schmidt
The Daily Cougar

Poetry and Prose doesnit usually feature the work of a writer who has been dead for almost 400 years. But most writers arenit William Shakespeare.

Behrooz Paizi/The Daily Cougar

Shakespeare was the focus of the final meeting of the semester for Poetry and Prose on Wednesday night in the Lyndall Finley Wortham Theatre. Noted Shakespearean scholar Anthony James West gave a presentation on the textual history of the First Folio, the first published collection of Shakespeareis work.

The second half of the evening was a presentation of three scenes from Shakespeare performed by students in the School of Theatre. Sidney Berger, the director of the School of Theatre, introduced scenes from three of Shakespeareis plays, Troilus and Cressida, The Comedy of Errors and The Tempest.

West discussed the history of the First Folio, which was published in 1622-23 by a small publishing house in London. There were approximately 750 copies, 228 of which are still extant. All but 20 of those are in the hands of public institutions like libraries and universities, including 82 in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Texas holds four copies: three at the University of Texasi Harry Ransom Center and one in the Dallas Public Library.

West has studied the history of the sale and ownership of the First Folio, including tracking down the current locations of the books and charting the history of the cost of the book.

For the first century of its existence, the book sold for an average of one British pound for already bound editions. Beginning in the 1700s, the value of the books began to increase dramatically, going up to 30 pounds in the 1790s, 354 pounds in the 1890s and as much as 3,864,000 pounds less than two years ago.

West recently published The Shakespeare First Folio: The History of the Book, the first volume of a planned four-volume set, the second volume of which will be coming out later this year.

West did his undergraduate work at Harvard and went on to attend the Harvard Business School. He recently earned a doctoral degree in English literature at the University College London. He lives near Kent, England.

The event was an unusual one for the Poetry and Prose series, which usually features authors reading their own work. The event was held in conjunction with the School of Theatre. Poetry and Prose is sponsored by the UH libraries and the UH Creative Writing Program.
 

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