Sunday Feature

Professor Emma Smith traces the story of seven of the original 750 copies of Shakespeare's First Folio to learn how it helped make his reputation as our national poet and turned him into an international star. Emma learns about Sir Edward Dering, the young nobleman from Kent who was the first documented purchaser of a First Folio, which he bought along with scarlet suits, a pot of marmalade and a present for his baby son. She hears about two real-life star-crossed lovers, Thomas and Isabella Hervey, from Ickworth in Suffolk, and examines the signatures they wrote in every copy of their shared library, including a First Folio. Emma also travels to St Omer in Northern France to see the most recently rediscovered copy and learn about the English Catholic schoolboys who may have performed excerpts from it there. She concludes by considering the spread outwards of Shakespeare's reputation and inwards into our lives.