OUT NOW! The Case for John Milton as the Reader of the Free Library First Folio

February 8, 2023 Claire M. L. Bourne

The “2d stanza” of the song sung to Mariana in *Measure for Measure*, added by hand on the last page of the play in the Free Library of Philadelphia’s copy of the First Folio (RBD EL SH15M 1623, sig. G6v).

Three and a half years ago, in September 2019, Jason Scott-Warren suggested that the handwriting in a copy of the Shakespeare First Folio in the Rare Book Department at the Free Library of Philadelphia might belong to John Milton. His claim was based on images of the marginalia published with an essay I had written about the 700+ handwritten inscriptions in the book and what they revealed about how one (then-anonymous) early reader engaged with the Shakespearean text. (The essay was published in Early Modern English Marginalia, edited by Katherine Acheson, for which Jason had also written a chapter.) My independent findings about the reader just so happened to match the Milton context well, both in terms of dating and modus operandi.

At long last, our article identifying Milton as the former owner and annotator of the Free Library First Folio—“‘thy unvalued Booke’: John Milton’s Copy of the Shakespeare First Folio”—has been published in Milton Quarterly (vol. 56).

VIDEO: Re-Reading Milton Re-Reading Shakespeare (SRS • June 30, 2020)

July 1, 2020 Claire M. L. Bourne

Yesterday, Jason Scott-Warren (Cambridge University) and I presented some updated findings about and readings of the marked up copy of Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623) housed in the Rare Book Department at the Free Library of Philadelphia. The talk was graciously hosted by the Society for Renaissance Studies and moderated by Daniel Starza Smith of King’s College London.

This particular copy of the first edition of Shakespeare’s plays was almost certainly owned and annotated by the poet John Milton, as Jason first proposed last September after reading an essay I had written about the reader’s marks. (See a digest of media coverage here.) Our talk moves beyond an effort to validate the attribution, as we consider possible timelines for Milton’s engagement with the playtexts based on palaeographic and other kinds of material evidence. How did Milton read and re-read Shakespeare? We also offer a new theory about the book’s provenance prior to its entering the historical record in an 1899 auction catalogue. If you were unable to tune in, a full playback of the talk and Q&A (with cat cameos) is available below.

Milton's Shakespeare: A Digest of Media Coverage

September 18, 2019 Claire M. L. Bourne

Suggested emendations to the text of ‘Romeo & Juliet’ in the Free Library of Philadelphia’s First Folio. [Reproduced with kind permission of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Rare Book Department.]

Since my last post, there has been a flurry of media interest around the news of the very real possibility that the copy of the Shakespeare First Folio at the Free Library of Philadelphia once belonged to—and is indeed annotated by—John Milton. Jason Scott-Warren floated this claim on Cambridge’s Centre for Material Texts blog early last week. His post was shared and vetted widely on social media and quickly picked up by the mainstream press.

It has been heartening to see at least some of the coverage pick up on the way Jason was able to identify Milton as the plausible reader of this book, rather than focusing squarely on the discovery. In particular, see the pieces in The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times and listen to Jason’s interview on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. For a corrective to some of the reporting that characterizes the book as previously “hidden” and “languishing” in the Free Library, see Free Library rare book curator Caitlin Goodman’s op-ed for The Inquirer.

Click through for a digest of media coverage. I will continue to update this list, so please feel free to contact me if you come across an article, radio bit, or TV segment not listed.

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