This fall, the University of Delaware Library is commemorating the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death with “Shakespeare Through the Ages,” an exhibition curated by Alexander Johnston, senior assistant librarian in the Special Collections Department.

The exhibition, which will be on view in the Special Collections exhibition gallery in Morris Library from Aug. 30 through Dec. 12, will feature rare books and manuscripts from the library’s collections of materials by and about Shakespeare.

“Shakespeare Through the Ages” will explore the reception and treatment of William Shakespeare’s works across the years, ranging from Shakespeare’s era to our own. The exhibition will draw upon the full breadth of the University of Delaware Library’s extensive holdings of rare and unique materials by and about Shakespeare.

This exhibition is one of a series of campus-wide events related to Shakespeare, including the traveling Folger Shakespeare Library show, “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare,” in University Museum’s Old College Gallery, from Aug. 30 through Sept. 25. The public is invited to attend activities dealing with Shakespearean books, plays, images, biography and more, ranging from lectures by distinguished scholars to a concert of Elizabethan songs to a hands-on workshop on the making of early printed books.

At the time of his death in 1616, Shakespeare’s published legacy was limited to 20 plays that had been printed in cheap, often inaccurate editions. These editions (referred to as “quartos,” for their size) were regarded as ephemeral objects and their survival rate today is extremely low. (Shakespeare’s own colleagues would later refer to these editions as fraudulent and inaccurate, “maimed, and deformed by the frauds and stealhes of inurious impostors.”)

Shakespeare seems to have been indifferent to publication, and this would have been in keeping with the status that plays held in his day. Playwrights earned their living by writing and producing plays. A published play rarely brought much of a profit, and had another drawback, for once published, a play could be performed by other theater companies, as there was no such thing as intellectual copyright.

Four hundred years ago, Shakespeare almost certainly seemed destined for oblivion. Fortunately, though, this changed in 1623 when two of Shakespeare’s former friends and colleagues, Henry Condell and John Heminges, financed the publication of Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (now usually known as the First Folio), a volume which contained all of Shakespeare’s plays, many of which had never before been printed.

Two early editions provide the focus for the exhibition: a 1632 Second Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, which was the second published edition of Shakespeare’s collected plays; and a rare quarto recently acquired by the University of Delaware Library.

Because the Second Folio was produced on a hand press using moveable type, the book is not an exact reprint of the First Folio, but rather an entirely new edition of Shakespeare’s text. Additionally, in what could be called the first systematic attempt to edit and correct Shakespeare’s printed texts, the editors of the Second Folio, attempted to correct the various errors that had crept into the First Folio. Particularly, they were able to correct places where the First Folio’s editors had rendered Latin, Greek and French passages inaccurately (and, in some cases, insensibly). Today, the Second Folio remains an important source in determining an accurate text of Shakespeare’s works.

Also on display will be a 1634 quarto edition of The Two Noble Kinsmen, a collaborative play written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher. This edition shows the inexpensive, smaller format in which Shakespeare’s plays originally circulated. Intended to be ephemeral objects, the quarto editions are now extremely rare. The University of Delaware copy of The Two Noble Kinsmen, purchased in 2015, is displayed in public for the first time.

In addition to early printed works by Shakespeare, the exhibition also features early editions by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, including those of his colleague and sometime rival, Ben Jonson, and the collaborative playwrights, Beaumont and Fletcher. Although these authors are not widely read today, they once enjoyed a popularity equal to Shakespeare’s, and help to place Shakespeare in context.

Also on view will be several of the texts that Shakespeare used as sources for his plays, including the English chronicles of Holinshed, Fabyan and Hall. Additionally, some of the earliest American printings of Shakespeare will be displayed, including a 1794 edition of Hamlet, the first Shakespeare text of any sort published in America.

Other sections of the exhibition will showcase private press editions from the 19th through 20th centuries, including a recently acquired copy of the Poems published by William Morris’ Kelmscott Press.

The exhibition will also address the many ways in which subsequent generations have reinterpreted, remade, and, in some cases, mocked Shakespeare’s works, through parodies, revisions and children’s editions, as well as forgeries which purported to be newly discovered texts by Shakespeare. Books, manuscripts and ephemera document the continuing performance of Shakespeare’s plays. All this, and more, will showcase the many ways in which Shakespeare’s works have lived on in the four centuries since his death.

“Shakespeare Through the Ages” will be available for viewing during regular hours of the Special Collections Department, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Tuesday evenings until 8 p.m. An online version of the exhibition will be available.

To arrange a group visit or class tour of the exhibition, contact Alexander Johnston via e-mail at: acj@udel.edu or by phone at: 302-831-2293. For information on all the Shakespeare-related events, go to this website.