DETROIT, MICH.- The Detroit Institute of Arts is the Michigan host site for “First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare,” a national traveling exhibition of the Shakespeare First Folio, one of the world’s most treasured books. It is on display at the museum from March 7 to April 3. The Folger Shakespeare Library, in partnership with Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, is touring the First Folio of Shakespeare to all 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico this year.

Many of William Shakespeare's plays were written to be performed and were not published during his lifetime. The First Folio is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays and was published in 1623, seven years after the playwright’s death. While two of Shakespeare’s fellow actors compiled 36 of his plays, hoping to preserve the works for future generations, the First Folio contained 18 additional plays that otherwise would have been lost, including “Macbeth,” “Julius Caesar,” “ Twelfth Night,” “The Tempest,” “ Antony and Cleopatra,” “The Comedy of Errors” and “As You Like It.”

“We are honored to have been selected as one of the institutions to help share this extraordinary part of the world's cultural heritage from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s collection,” said Salvador Salort-Pons, DIA director. “It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view one of the most influential books in history in the context of our European art collection, situated in a gallery where visitors will find some of the drama of Shakespeare through works such as ‘Othello and Desdemona Dagger and Scabbard’ by Félicie de Fauveau and other art with literary themes.”

The Folger Shakespeare Library, located in Washington, D.C., holds 82 copies of the First Folio, by far the largest collection in the world and more than a third of the 233 known copies in the world today. It is believed that 750 copies were originally printed. The Shakespeare First Folio is one of the most valuable printed books in the world; a First Folio sold for $6.2 million in 2001 at Christie’s auction house and another one for $5.2 million in 2006 in London. It originally sold for one British pound (20 shillings)—about $200 today.

“The First Folio is the book that gave us Shakespeare. Between its covers we discover his most famous characters—Hamlet, Desdemona, Cordelia, Macbeth, Romeo, Juliet and hundreds of others—speaking words that continue to move and inspire us,” said Michael Witmore, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library. “Shakespeare tells the human story like no one else. He connects us to each other, to our history, and to themes and ideas that touch us every day. We are delighted that we can share this precious resource with people everywhere, from San Diego, California to Gurabo, Puerto Rico, from Eugene, Oregon to Duluth, Minnesota.”

The Folio is on view at the DIA while accompanying exhibitions are on display at WSU’s David Adamany Undergraduate Library and at the DPL (main library), where second and fourth folio editions from their rare book collection are being shown.