Shakespeare & Beyond

John Barrymore is sometimes passed over in the lists of great Shakespeare actors, but he was an important transitional figure in our understanding of the evolution of Shakespearean performance styles, writes Austin Tichenor.

In this Folger bas-relief, sculptor John Gregory shows Hamlet facing the sources of his torment: his father’s murder and his mother’s betrayal.

Italian regions share a culinary history that is rooted in the ingredients, tastes, and techniques that came out of early-modern innovations, explorations, and cultural movements.

Shakespeare was born on April 23, which makes April the perfect month to catch one of his plays at a theater near you. We checked in with some of our theater partners to find out what they have onstage.

The Inkhorn Controversy in the 15th and 16th centuries focused on the use of long, Latinate words as opposed to shorter, Saxon-rooted English counterparts.

This new book by Andrew McConnell Stott is about David Garrick and the Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769 in Stratford-upon-Avon.

One of Hannah Woolley’s books has sat hidden in plain sight at the Folger since 1990—included in the Folger online catalog, but missing from an international database that scholars often use to search for early English books. It is the…

Food historian and The Great British Baking Show winner Mary-Anne Boermans writes about piecing together 17th-century manuscript recipes for Taffety Tarts.

Austin Tichenor of the Reduced Shakespeare Company asks what it means to be a Shakespeare purist and attempts to interpret audience reactions.

Artist Paul Glenshaw writes about drawing the bas-relief of Richard III by sculptor John Gregory on the front of the Folger Shakespeare Library building.

Every month, we take a look at Shakespeare in performance at theaters across the USA. See what’s onstage in the month of March.

See a 17th-century recipe for seed cake inspired by the farmer poet Thomas Tusser. Ingredients include rosewater, caraway seeds, and sherry.