.. >> host: andrea mays, welcome.

a fantastic book and i enjoyed it thoroughly. it's a page-turner a thrilling adventure permanently accessible. congratulations on it. >> guest: thank you, coming from you that is praise indeed. >> host: talk about the subtitle of your book if i may quote henry folger's obsessive hunt for shakespeare's first folio but i think it might be helpful originally to talk about those two men in the context of their times. of course if i made they were two men look alike in dignity quoting from shakespeare and yet separated by 400 years and the atlantic ocean very different that but they share one thing, a passion for in one case writing and the other collecting but put them in the context of their lives if you would please. >> guest: sure. shakespeare was writing around the 1600's. his life was 20 years before, 20

years after the 1600. during the rain of elizabeth and james the first. he was a well-known playwright poet. he wrote sonnets and he was also a businessman. here is a shareholder in the globes theater company in london and landowner in very well-known in his time for being a playwright and a businessman. henry folger was the chairman the first president and chairman of the board of the largest corporation in the world and most reviled corporation in the world as well during the gilded age. shakespeare wrote these plays. seven years after he died to does this friends decided to create a memorial volume to him and collective all of the plays that he had written and the two

men are connected across time and across the ocean in that this book has saved half of shakespeare's play from a security became a fetish object for collectors and henry folger chairman of standard oil company wanted to own every known copy of his first folio. >> host: there's something interesting in your book. i thought of the gilded age as a very secret term referring to it that way but in fact it was mark twain who coined the term and he was anything but complimentary about those who lived in the gilded age. >> guest: that's right, he was quite pejorative about it and in part the question is what the new wealthy did to display their wealth but these magnificent mansions in new york and they had collections of art and books as well. they threw cash around and

bought up european treasures and brought them back to the states. henry fulcher was quite different than most of the gilded age characters that we know of jpmorgan, henry huntington and the like. he was quiet unassuming, came from very modest means, worked his way up the run of the latter at the standard oil company for most of all he never built himself a mansion. he never owned a house until he retired from standard oil. he was a rented house in brooklyn with rented furniture but they very modest life and kept secret his passion for collecting. >> host: secretive build a bigger house if he didn't spend some money -- so much money on the manuscripts. tell us about that. >> guest: undoubtedly that is true but he displayed some of his artwork at home but most of

the already collective for books, manuscripts musical scores costumes playbills and on and on, anything related to shakespeare he looked at, he studied and when the house was full to the bram he would take them down into the basement wrap them up with them in a box and ship the box off to a warehouse. i looked at receipts for storage fees for 30 years for some of the rooms that he rented so one by one he would select these warehouses rooms with his treasures come, make an amatory and make a note of which box within which room and over 30 years accumulated bram after room in his house in brooklyn manhattan. >> host: i think there's a tv shows called porter semi-'s there's a little element of that i suppose. >> guest: there's a big element of that. if you are a person who is obsessed with colette in recyclable bottles are

contemporary newspapers and magazines and is back from an your house to where you can't walk for your house we might say you have some kind of borderline personality or it interferes with your normal living. henry folger certainly acquired things. the only things the only things he acquired were very valuable and interesting so we don't call them a quarter. >> host: not boxes of kentucky fried chicken from 10 years ago. you want to talk a little bit about james swanson of well-known author and a bit of a collector of other memorabilia? >> guest: bit of a collector is an understatement. you are being kind yes. part of my research on henry folger was informed by the fact that i did live with the collector and he had been collecting objects manuscripts looks related to lincoln since he was 10 years old.

he has amassed an enormous collection that i haven't seen the full extent of yet because like henry james has had to put many of his objects into storage because there is no room for them. we have storage facilities in more than one state. >> host: i was going to say that you know about. >> guest: that i know about, right cool. >> host: james is a co-author of a number but particularly manhunt about john wilkes booth after the lincoln assassination but let's go back in time a little further than that. the first folio. could you talk about what a folio is? some of the viewers may not be a aware of it in the first folio shakespeare's work and the two men, this saviors of shakespeare's plays. >> guest: the folio verse 5 -- refers to the size of the book.

it's very large, 13 times eight eight -- third train x8 depending. that would be closer to something called the cordell which is half the size and what made it interesting was the folio side conveyed some kind of gravitas in it and prior to this first folio shakespeare that size it really been reserved for political and religious tracks with some gravity. not fiction, not literature and certainly not plays which were not regarded as literature. they were regarded as a femoral amusements for the masses. the first folio was a memorial volume that two of shakespeare's friends john henry -- hemings and john condell put together as a tribute to their deceased

friend. >> host: how long before had he passed away? >> guest: he died in 1660 and the first folio was published in 1623. the idea probably percolated about five years after shakespeare's death. at which time by the time of shakespeare's death only half of his place at and published so they remained half of the -- is it not arguably known to history had these two men not said but these all together in one volume and save them for posterity. many of the manuscripts possibly been the only copies of the manuscript had gone up in flames at the globe theater in 1613. >> host: what a horrific story that is. talk a little bit about how that fair -- fire came about. interesting and a bit of a reminiscence of some but tragedies we have had in

america. >> guest: the globe theater was like the other theaters in london trying to attract patrons patrons. they held 1500 people, an enormous structure and one of the ways they attracted patrons was the added special effects and one of the special effects and we have a good idea of let's use a real canon. >> host: not that computer-generated canon, the rep cannon. >> guest: they shot off a canon upon the arrival of a think it was henry the eighth or bribed during a play. they announced is ripe with the canon shot and some of the wadding that was in the canon shot up to the thatched roof of the theater and it caught fire and earned to the ground in two hours. the great fire of

mostly what they did was in fact exclusively what they did was they held them very closely. there was a single copy under lock and key at the theater and someone was in charge of those manuscripts because they fear that other theater companies would get copies of them and take them out to other cities perform the place and not pay the many royalties. so they figured we have got the rights to hamlet you want to have the only copy that's fair. we don't want other companies performing hamlet. >> host: i know from the movie shakespeare in love which presumably contains some historical accuracy, huge amount of rivalry between the theatrical companies write to the level of better and perhaps i was exaggerated in the film but we know it was although popular entertainment extremely

revelers. >> guest: there was a lot of competition among the theater companies. by the end of shakespeare's career he retires back to stratford upon avon in 1611. by that time there are two major theater companies left in funded in part of the reason for that relates back to the puritan prohibiting the production of the place. they didn't let her lay shut the theaters down but that's also demonstrated in shakespeare in love the rebel shuts the theater down either for plays or later the puritan would say that place where an abomination against god pretending to be something they weren't and with men playing the parts of women they were even more upset about that. >> host: including that great line that woman is a woman. i was also fascinated as a

former business journalist and i covered the graphic arts printing industry to learn about jaggard the blind printer. fascinating how the first folio was actually constructed. it was massive for one thing 900 pages. paper was a problem. talk a little bit about that. >> guest: the end of the story is without many copies of the first folio to compare it would be very difficult to draw the inference about how the book was actually printed so having many copies available to compare side-by-side health them figure out how to copy. alone in the short of it is which by the way is a phrase from shakespeare is that the book was printed from the inside out. he didn't print page one and then page two and page three. he printed them in little look with cindy started in the middle of the book that and you set the type moving from the inside out.

it's very hard to understand but i will explain it in the book. this meant two things. one was that you as a printer had to estimate how much tax would fit on the page but you'd able to fit this little booklet exactly. if you have too much room not such a big problem, you could add printers ornament, something decorative. you could virtually doublespaced the text with. if you ran out of space on the other hand it might have to print as prose or you may have to cut a line from the speech in order to make the text within. >> host: the typesetter says this is the last chapter has to go. >> guest: today if he were on using microsoft word you would hit justify and everything would fit to the space but you couldn't do that pretty at the hands of the tie. >> host: one thing i'm curious about today we have mostly

hardcover and paperback books and e-books and during his long as there is mbytes but the paper in many of today's books and not speaking of high-quality literary or art novels but popular fiction doesn't last very long. talk about the paper and we will talk more about the present-day collection of the folios but talk about if you would what is this paper made of? is an danger or will it be in danger in five years or 10 years? >> guest: the answer is com.gov. yeah. the first paper was high-quality for rag paper from normandy france. that's where the best paper came from and that is what jaggard used in printing the first folio. part of that was to convey that the boards of the volume to say this isn't something important something special. something like a paperback book

which would be half the size of the folio would have been printed on lower-quality paper. it would have been more brutal and more civic and less likely to integrate which is why the cordoz size plates are much more rare. and the folios have survived with pretty good, and pretty good numbers. they suffered hazards of time fire insects, infestation. people tearing plays out because it's more convenient to be able to carry one play around. >> host: rather than 900 pages. >> guest: a pretty good number of them have survived. >> host: one thing i found as dating jacquard wasn't doing this out of the goodness of his heart. he had to estimate to print axe number y number and y number india to sell them. of the 750 copies how did they get into the stream of commerce?

>> guest: they were sold out of the printer shop. >> host: is so printer/bookseller in a way. >> guest: the printing, the bookselling the paper warehouses would have been around in london so the square around the same pulp was printing to what broadway is in theaters. that was in part geographic accident but impart planned by the crown because the crown want to know what was being rented and what ideas were being disseminated so not only the printing presses but the booksellers would have been under the watchful eye of the crown. >> host: what would a first folio cost of the time? >> guest: at the time of publication that would have cost of found bush is a pretty hefty sum of money.

a cordoz size by contrast may have cost five or 6p so much cheaper. >> host: the first copy of the press of "the millionaire and the bard" is probably the same as the 10,000 not the press. there were some differences and variations. was that because of the length differences or the actual construction of the book itself? >> guest: there are two main reasons. one is corrections to the test were made while the printing was going on so you might printing and on page 64 for copy number 60 ford the printer comes over and makes corrections to it has the type reset to break the corrections, misspellings for example. we have to correct that on the fly and the proof sheet would be

back with the other pages and later collated into the copy and the new pages or printed off what have the corrected version. for every page there was a single proof sheet uncorrected pages and some corrected version so if you multiply that by 900 pages every copy is slightly different for you. >> host: have jaggard taken over at this point or were hemings and condell involve? >> guest: they would have taken the courses available to them they already printed versions of the play that have been available in quarto. they edited them. they had acted in these plays with shakespeare. they had been friends with him for a long time so they knew how the plays acted so they could look at the example one of the

quarto's of hamlet and how is published in say that's not how it was, this is how it was and then added into the one that we must usually now. this all would have been in how they had edited essentially these plays. once the manuscripts were transcribed by probably ralph crane, they got to the printer shop and that is probably not so much isaac who was blind by this time but his son who would have done the corrections. >> host: now what i'm thinking of is shakespeare to my surprise did not really become popular until sometime after his death. he was well-known shakeup the

end playwright but it was hunted in 40 years until his popularity began to soar. what happened to the first folio's? were they marginalized or did people truly realize that someday this would be valuable? >> guest: i don't know the collectors or actors or producers at the time. someday people will recognize how great this is. in fact over that period of time we have the english civil wars during which the puritans took over parliament and then they prohibited place from being produced which meant there were no new plays being written into all plays were not being performed so it was not until the restoration that shakespeare's plays again come back to the stage and by then public tastes had changed a little bit. the producers of the plays started to change the endings.

>> host: i have had several movies made in hollywood. i know how that works. >> guest: it's notorious at the end. a particular actor on the copy of the folio a man named david derek -- derek. he added that the plays themselves producing them in london for example romeo and juliette he produced with either happy endings are said endings you can imagine. a few of the plays he cut an act or to. >> host: a whole act? >> guest: a whole act. it back one time he cut to ask. and so by the time we get to the 150 years after shakespeare's death to plays are quite different from he remembered.

really by going back to the first folio that we have a good idea of how they would have been performed at the time that shakespeare was still alive he had. >> host: this brings up a very important point primarily the first folio but there were other folios as well. i found fascinating and i think it was the third folio all of a sudden you see a copy of the third folio open it up, seven new plays one of which was apparently attributable to shakespeare. where the others come from a talk about the other folios. >> guest: they were for folios altogether, for editions. each of them got further and further away from the original text as hemings and condell had edited it so again they would affect a nice place. there are hundreds of mistakes that are too distant to later folios and essentially the first folio sells out in nine years. the second folio is produced

the third and fourth ad possible place to which you refer. i could dig into my attic and say today i found a manuscript of harper lee's fourth or fifth novel and 20 years posthumously i publish her work. that's what was going on. they thought they could make a little extra money by saying the portfolio is better than the first. >> host: they must have had some intrinsic value someone would want to have maybe the whole panoply of folios if possible. >> guest: yeah and collectors want huntington and folger to own the complete batch. most of those collectors one of the high spot, good quality copy of one of each. folger wanted every copy he could get his hands on. good copy, bad copy with

graffiti and it, missing plays with pages with anzac ward holds and -- insect board holes. he wanted them all. >> host: i have to bring up a subject that i'm not going to charge your world sees for this however should you know that let the viewers know my last name is deeper and according to my family genealogist i am descended from oxford edwards deaver who was and is called the anti-stride 40 hands. is that the correct way to pronounce it? the conspiracy theorists who believe he is a front man. i do not prescribe to that so i won't issue world taste for the whole shakespeare story but talk

a little bit about that. >> guest: broadly it's called the option and shakespeare writes this place and this group of people who have various candidates for whom they believe actually wrote the plays that are to be due to shakespeare. there are few things are important to know. one is that in this lifetime no one doubted that shakespeare had written them. it was 150 years before someone says i don't think this man mannerly wrote the plays. if you go back to stratford-upon-avon there's the woman is evidence. there are no grammar school records to show that he went to the grammar school there. he didn't go to university so how could he make noise without a university education? the earl of oxford is one of the candidates and marlowe is another. francis bacon was the most popular. amelia begin in the 1800's wrote a book essentially reporting

that francis bacon had no relation to her by the way, had written plays and there is not then anyone named william shakespeare. ms. begin had a very and interesting inventory of her own. she went to england to research the authorship. she went to the town and absorbed the atmosphere but didn't do any interviewing or archival research. >> host: fiction writers do that a lot. >> guest: just went there to absorb the atmosphere. she didn't and so well however her walk had it -- written by nathaniel hawthorne who regretted for the rest of his life that he had written an introduction because by the time he read the book she ended up in an insane asylum at the end of her life so she had an interesting life on her own. that alone doesn't mean that her hypothesis is correct however we have a lot of evidence that shakespeare existed.

he lived in london. he wrote plays. his contemporary playwrights fellowes wrote about him in the playwright. posted he acted in the plays. >> guest: he acted in the plays. the english word tremendously accurate recordkeepers. someone called the master of the rebels would have kept track of who had written the plays and who acted in them. shakespeare's mention dozens of time so queen elizabeth and james burst would have no new shakespeare was and would have known his place they were. don webster and the white devil writes about as friendly and shakespeare, playwright and johnson comic writer at the time wrote in the preface for the first folio and elsewhere compliments about his friend william shakespeare is that we have a lot of information about connecting shakespeare. >> host: i do have to point out to my cousin who is such an avid conspiracists because of

our namesake of course he is a deaver as well edwards barrack died before "the tempest" and several others as well. he said edwards could have written them under his bed or innate -- somewhere. ..

>> >> if they are the unsung heroes. >> host: and we have a picture of shakespeare?

>> we do. there are two images. one is made out of plaster that is enough the chapel at t. said but that was commissioned after his death although their members would have said that is not what he looks like. but there was a commissioned a flemish engraver to make an image on the title page of the first folio this is the first time the authors picture was of the title page in such a prominent position. there would be another second tory source -- secondary source and then they but having grave to this then have show ms. to say why a police sketch artist although but it would

be hard to erase from the engraving but he could have said that is not what he looks like at all. >> host: now let's cross the pond shakespeare theater did not catch shot as much until much later. i have a wonderful quotation about the spirited increase this said persons who have been corrupted are seldom end with much difficulty so it took awhile to get footing in america at. >> guest: it takes about one century. for almost the same reasons the place would have disappeared in england but the puritans the had shut down the production in england were the ones who came to the colonies.

they would not allow place to be produced here either so it took about one century even on the frontier was read and performed pta until so the confluence of shakespeare and henry folger and how did he start to think she needed to possess his plays. >> guest: i'd think it happened with many collectors over a period of time. he was studying the plays at amherst college and heard ever said deliver a lecture then became interested and read his lecture are shakespearean thought this is worth a closer study and the rest of his life he read the plays of the affected him personally. he thought shakespeare really captured modern man and amazingly he is not that

different in 8080 or 400 years later. so the play is informed him about love and life and jealousy part one is you really like the plays but then when he had seven come he started to collect copies of the folio part of the first when he acquires this came at $107 he pays for that over time. >> host: he would have his lawbooks but at that point

is he a student or already working? he was also known to carry copies in his pocket. he and his wife emily also went to many shakespeare performance is its new york. he enjoyed watching and reedy and eventually to write back-and-forth so was it near madness? >> this is more than possessing. he was involved in the shakespearean world from portfolios to the acting and theater production we don't

know a lot about that. >> guest: ironically from a man who saved many scraps of paper thousands upon thousands of letters over the 50 years he was writing, we know very little about the first acquisition about 83 we know the condition but we don't have a record how much he paid for it. >> i was absolutely enthralled with your description of if with manuscripts collecting of that gilded age. how people would want the unwashed manuscript there were agents and spies. talk about that. >> guest: the first folio is exceptional in the book collecting world that a copy

it is missing plays, the missing pages cover damaged damaged, the missing the title page and the cover bad shape, it is still desirable to collectors. you would not be interested as a collector but the first folio is exceptional that collectors it does not matter the condition in the price changes. they want copies no matter where they are. although incredibly inquisitive but he actually did read the plays.

>> with one of your stellar reviews the men and women that we have to thank and of course, have the folger but his wife that you refer to she was instrumental in the collection process. >> she was. without them we would not know half of the plays that we do today. she was the unsung hero because if you are the abscessed collector running the world's largest corporation during the day then come home at night to sift through catalogs even on vacation you break your inventory in case something comes up to find out if you have a better copy, it is very helpful to have a

spouse to shares that passion. otherwise that interferes. [laughter] she shared his passion for shakespeare she wrote the master's thesis on shakespeare and also participated on a daily basis to go to the catalog to make inventory of their collection and suggesting what they should buy. she also attended many performances had kept a diary of that as well. so he looked out so was very compatible with him on that. but by the time he died 1930 the stock market had already crashed and the value of the endowment he planned to leave behind to fund a the library was cut 40%.

if emily was not as generous with her own money the library would not have been completed. there were not as generous as say expected and without giving her money it would not have opened. >> host: my impression was when they first got started they were more devoted to the folio itself and to the art of collecting. they made some mistakes. didn't he try to talk rockefeller into purchasing a huge body of work to suggest he could make some money with the publishing world to sell pocketbooks and that did not work out

but. >> guest: but that was the case from the financial brinksmanship but could not put the money together for the entire collection on sale. but to see you justin doubt the university of chicago. maybe the university would like to have a great collection. harvard has one that i would be willing to go through to tell you what are the most valuable and what should be reproduced the and you could sell them. rockefeller did not buy that. >> host: i suppose he was miffed about that.

but some of that did get to falter maya understand there is a financial panic and to suffer a loss of a tremendous collection of shakespeareana and ultimately he did get that collection. >> one of the most thrilling accounts is a manuscript this single most viable and by rebel -- valuable as a contemporary and ended up a collection.

>> host: but that acquisition had ups and downs. >> guest: folger became aware of a superb copy complete with all of the original leads of the folio that was not supplied from another copy. part of the original 17th century covered that had been put on that and we know who had known that from the get-go. thank given by the printer. end with a specific person

in the two that we know of of, if you look at the end papers of the book has that presentation copy with the inscription. the other copy would have gone to the library at oxford that was mandated. >> than that incident also. >> pollster becomes aware of this copy publish 1903 by a shakespeare scholar and for four years as does he want for this copy? a lot of money could i buy that over time? we'll catch on approval and then to scrape together they fitted shall wherewithal the

english man who owns a copy to say i change my mind i would rather have the book in the czech to ask me if i change my mind in then to see if i ready to sell my book that at some point he writes to folder to save somebody else has offered the money and that information and gets back and i was offered 10,000 pounds. >> the folger again had some financial difficulty could i pay for overtime almost lost it but did the and.

>> host: your palms are sweating two-seat. >> the idea was to have you go on the same ride that henry did you don't know if he will end up with of copy or not. i was a routine for him they he would ultimately get the copy. >> host: that brings up an interesting point but i was thinking my initial reaction this is therefore a the star playwrights as an upstart yankee if there was never any backlash? i think there was with that was the manuscript you were referring to? >> guest: that happens twice and it is owned by the library and when day acquire

the second or third folio they decided to sell the first. years later some collector comes and asks them can you verify this is the first folio? they look at the cover that contained half where the chain would have went through and attached to wish also somebody could have read the book but they would have to stand there it is unique to these copies at the library with a man named wild goose. another interesting name. he wanted to buy a the copy back the collector said to thousand pounds and walters said where do i send the check? i will take a right now

meanwhile he was trying to raise money to buy it back for his own collection. articles appeared in the newspaper from the book collecting world to save what anybody give the money? absolutely oxford men are not buying this so even cambridge. where are you? and a cartoon was published of a faceless millionaire because they did not know who he was anonymous going through a book dealer and it was the portrait of someone like moneybags from monopoly with bags of cash to live get the english treasurer who is the faceless millionaire?

there was a great deal of backlash that the treasures were brought to overseas. the second time was following the acquisition of facebook -- of soldiers acquisition of the vincent copy and with the first folio and looking over at shakespeare's bones and his grave have a bite to bring those to america as well. they were not happy that the americans with a lot of cash were buying their cultural treasures liberating books from the dusty libraries of the aristocrats then taking them back to the united states. >> host: i cannot believe our time has gone by so quickly. but i want to turn the tables.

you have a dedication to your mother and father who enlisted in his majesty's navy to defend shakespeare's england. i found that touching so let's talk about you. i know you have economics degree and teach that now and i thank you were a protege? one of my favorite writers so talk about that and also how you came to write the book. >> guest: my father is english he joined the navy at age 17 he and his brother. have fought world war ii he took me to stratford upon avon and i was a teenager. that probably was the colonel but the storytelling came from franklin and his

mentor that talk -- taught me shakespeare and literature he was a quintessential storyteller it did not matter what it was about but he taught us how to develop dramatic tension and how to tell a tale. >> host: as i mentioned in my remarks i read so many but it is called a page turner. and i also appreciate footnotes in you are as meticulous as anything else it is such a page turning tail. it is. one thing i would like to do talk about is many viewers are not familiar with culture at all.

you mentioned it a little bit but how much did he have to the end of his life? he wanted it to have the home so could you tell us about that? >> guest: henry and his wife were friends with a shakespeare scholar from the university of pennsylvania. he suggested don't just pass these the way or how many copies do you have for to have one i can look at? he would say it is in storage aconite get to wit but dozens of scholars said you have this copy can i have a look? he would say sorry it is packed away. the arabia came to him at the turn of the century he should build a library to make this available to scholars.há

>> >> i have been there many times i even bought a cookbook and posted it banquet for about 40 of 50 people and it was the great time. we're almost out of time but here describe yourself as obsessive how many first

folios are accounted for at folger library that is henry's collection and elsewhere around the world? >> there are 82 copies at the folger library. the next largest collection is the university of japan and that is 12. the next largest is the british library and that is five. so is not common for people to have a dozen or more copies but as of november last year so out there somewhere there are first folio. >> there would be delightful even the page which take that. >> weevil do detective work to find one in a barn.

>> one that could lead me to the lost manuscript we do know there are plays that he wrote. >> is a possible to still be discovered? >> yes. no manuscript has been discovered but copies of the first folio have recently gone between five and $6 million. many librarians would go through the inventory to say i may have won out there as well and in fact there was recently discovered a copy and dave verified it is number 245. >> host: any our time is up and good luck with your request. >> guest: thank you

>> host: we want to introduce you to the northwestern professor john marquez author of "black-brown solidarity". what was your goal of what we trying to accomplish with your book?