Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, or the First Folio, collects 36 of the playwright’s works, including his most celebrated plays like Macbeth, The Tempest, and Hamlet. Published seven years after his death, the First Folio is considered an authoritative and highly significant collection in scholarship on Shakespeare’s life, plays, and literature writ large.

This past spring, AM released First Folios Compared, an open access project that brings together more than 40 copies of the First Folio—of which only 233 still survive today. In this series, Claudine Nightingale, Publisher, and Ana Attrill-Klein, Quartex Product Specialist, both of AM, discuss the editorial scope and technological features of the project. They dig into how researchers can use the platform to compare the First Folio copies side-by-side, studying unique differences in the annotative marks, ink color, and overall quality. Further, Ana walks through how the Quartex platform supports the detailed metadata and comparison tools, while Claudine chats about the range of institutions included in the project, supplementary materials like a beginner’s guide, and additional Folios that will be added later this year.

In the first episode of this four-part series, Claudine and Ana share their roles at AM and in the First Folios project. They explain the import of the First Folio to Shakespearean studies, and provide some background on First Folios Compared’s intended audience, technical groundwork, and the process of recruiting institutions to participate.

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