A close viewing event: Rare Shakespeare

Piringatahi | Special Collections Up Close: Rare Shakespeare

Poems, written by Wil. Shakespeare, gent. Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, 1640 SHAK.

In this Piringatahi: Special Collections Up Close event, we delve into the 17th-century publishing history of Shakespeare’s plays.

Auckland Libraries is the only institution in the Southern Hemisphere to hold copies of all four 17th-century editions of Shakespeare’s collected plays and early editions of his sonnets.

Join us for a close-up look at these rare books, including the Second Folio, published in 1632, just nine years after the first published edition of Shakespeare’s plays.

Learn why the Third Folio is particularly rare, and see first-hand how the work had changed by the time the Fourth Folio was published in 1685. We’ll also look at the controversial “bad” edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets, published in 1640.

WHERE

Central City Library | Tāmaki Pātaka Kōrero, 44-46 Lorne Street, Auckland City Centre

Special Collections Reading Room, Level 2

WHEN

Saturday 20 May 2023
10.30am-11.30am

COST

Free