"But why all this fuss about Shakespeare?": text, transmission, and technology. This paper was given at the colloquium 'Vers une littérature mondiale à l’heure numérique?' 
(Towards a world literature in the digital age?), 30 September–2 October 2015
, at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and l’université Paris-Sorbonne. http://obvil.paris-sorbonne.fr/actualite/vers-une-litterature-mondiale-lheure-du-numerique/mer-30092015-0000

1. “But why all this fuss about Shakespeare?”:
text, transmission, and technology
Pip Willcox
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
@pipwillcox
Bodleian First Folio,Title page, f.πA1+1r
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Vers une littérature mondiale à l’heure numérique?
30 September–2 October 2015
Bibliothèque nationale de France et l’université Paris-Sorbonne
http://www.slideshare.net/PipWillcox/butwhyallthisfussreducedsize

2. http://www.princeton.edu/~danson/Lit131/HANDBOOK/Swan.htm
JohannesdeWitt’ssketchoftheSwanTheatre
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Early modern theatre:a co-creation

3. http://shakespeare.berkeley.edu/index.php?option=com_g2bridge&view=gallery&Itemid=256&g2_itemId=16938
WilliamKempe,KempsninedaiesvvonderPerformedinadauncefrom
LondontoNorwich…London:1600.
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Early modern theatre:a co-creation

4. The Stationers’Register
BykindpermissionoftheWorshipfulCompanyof
StationersandNewspapermakers
With thanks to Giles Bergel and Ian Gadd for supplying the Photograph
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

5. Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
1623
http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2012/03/saving-oxfords-medicine/
WellcomeImages

6. An unexplained arrival
BodleianFirstFolio,‘TothegreatVarietyofReaders’,f.A3r
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ Bodley: plays in quarto as “baggage books”,
“riff-raffe”, “idle books”
✤ Presented by the consortium of printers, or John
Hemminge and Henry Condell?
✤ Under the 1610 agreement with the Stationers’
Company?
http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

7. WilliamWildgoose,bookbinderBodleianLibraries
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ A consignment of 10 books
✤ Strong, plain brown leather
✤ Recycled paste-downs:
Cicero’s De Officiis (~1480-1485)
Bod-Inc. C-322
BodleianFirstFolio,Insideupperboard
http://shakespeare.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ — http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

8. 1624
BodleianLibraries,1905,digitized2012
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
http://shakespeare.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

9. 1624
"Engraving of Arts End, Duke Humfrey's Library" by David Loggan - http://rycote.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/?
location_id=176. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:Engraving_of_Arts_End,_Duke_Humfrey%27s_Library.jpg#mediaviewer/
File:Engraving_of_Arts_End,_Duke_Humfrey%27s_Library.jpg
Arts End, Bodleian Library
David Loggan, Oxonia Illustrata, 1675
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

10. A (partially) well-read book
BodleianFirstFolio,HenryIVPart1(f.D6r);KingJohn(f.B5v);
RomeoandJuliet(f.Ff5r)
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

11. An unexplained departure
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16898
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14034
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ The Third Folio is published, 1663/4
✤ Thomas Lockey, Librarian, 1660 — 1665
✤ “not altogether fit for that office”
✤ “Rcd of Mr Ri: Davis for Superfluous Library Bookes [...] £24”
✤ John “the bookseller” Hudson, Librarian, 1701 — 1719
✤ “negligent if not incapable”

12. Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
1905
Photograph:BodleianLibraries,1905;
digitized2012
http://ww1Photographgraphs.com/Rolls/Harrow/
Turbutt_G_M_R_Lt_2nd_Oxford_Bucks_Light_Infantry_Harrow_Roll_Of_Honour_Vol_1.jpg
✤ Gladwyn Turbutt, Magdalen College
✤ Falconer Madan, Deputy Librarian
✤ Strickland Gibson, Assistant Librarian
Hills&Saunders,1906;
digitalimage:BodleianLibraries

13. 1905
Photograph:PipWillcox
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ Madan, Gibson and Turbutt, The Original
Bodleian Copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare
(The Turbutt Shakespeare), Oxford: 1905
✤ Bibliographical Society lecture
✤ Review in The Times
✤ The Athenæum, 25 February 1905
Bodleian Library Records, c. 1260

14. 1905
Hills&Saunders,1906;digitalimage:BodleianLibraries
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ E.W.B. Nicholson, Bodley’s Librarian,
1882 — 1912
✤ Offered to buy the First Folio for the
Library at its market value

15. 1905
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ E.W.B. Nicholson, Bodley’s Librarian,
1882 — 1912
✤ Offered to buy the First Folio for the
Library at its market value
✤ An anonymous offer of £3,000
Photograph:PipWillcox
Bodleian Library Records, c. 1260

16. 1905
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
AmherstCollegeMagazine,Fall2007
https://www.amherst.edu/aboutamherst/magazine/issues/2007_fall/shakespeare
✤ E.W.B. Nicholson, Bodley’s Librarian,
1882 — 1912
✤ Offered to buy the First Folio for the
Library at its market value
✤ An anonymous offer of £3,000
✤ Henry Clay Folger, Standard Oil

17. A private campaign
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ ‘PROPOSED REPURCHASE FOR THE
BODLEIAN OF THE ORIGINAL
BODLEIAN COPY OF THE 1ST FOLIO
SHAKESPEARE (1623)’
✤ “Oxford men”
Photograph:PipWillcox
Bodleian Library Records, c. 1259

18. National commons
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
“I think every patriotic Englishman should answer”
“in so national a matter I think that every patriotic criteria is vitally
aroused”
Photographgraphs:PipWillcox
Bodleian Library Records, c. 1260

19. National commons
Photograph:PipWillcox
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
“I hope it is possible to raise the sum required, & to prevent this treasure
going the way of all our English treasures — to America.”
Bodleian Library Records, c. 1260

20. Diversity
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ Not all from Oxford
✤ Not all from men
“Pray forgive the mistakes. Put it down to my being
a Cambridge man, mourning that Oxford men have
not found the requisite sum. I hope it will be found.”
“from my sister-in-law Mrs. Henry Pott, that there
exists a Guild of Ladies”
Photographgraphs:PipWillcox
Bodleian Library Records, c. 1260

21. “man-eating money maniacs”
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ Not everyone supported the appeal
“Secondly, having due regard to the cost of existing in this present
wicked world, it is quite absurd that any copy of any book should
command such a price. Only the man-eating money-maniacs of
America could have started such an inept fashion. […] By all
means let them have EVERYTHING that can be bought for
money – the Pope’s tiara and the King’s crown and a majority in
the House of Commons – and a free passage across the Styx. And
let them have the Shakespeare, if the present possessor’s
sentiment and conscience allows him to let them have it. The only
cure for covetousness is satiety – and the Styx.”
Photograph:PipWillcox
“Fourthly, why all this fuss about Shakespeare? If you were
offered genuine manuscripts of the lost plays of Sophocles, I can
imagine that heaven and earth ought to be moved to where the
University Press would then provide us, who love Sophocles and
decent literature, with copies, much better for practical purposes
than the originals, and at a reasonable sum. But why all this fuss
about Shakespeare?
“[…] Why should the great, the dignified, Bodleian Library lend
itself to the encouragement of such literary provincialism?”
Bodleian Library Records, c. 1260

22. A successful campaign
BodleianLibraries
Arch.Gc.7andArch.Gc.8.
Photograph:PipWillcox
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ Curated by the Bodleian’s Rare Books
✤ The Turbutt family commissioned its box
http://shakespeare.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

23. 2012:Sprint for Shakespeare
HELP US OPEN THE BODLEIAN’S FIRST COLLECTED
EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS TO THE WORLD
Shakespeare’s First Folio is one of the greatest treasures in the
Bodleian collection, and we would like your help opening it up for
anyone anywhere in the world to enjoy exploring its pages. Now,
in the year of the Cultural Olympiad, we invite Shakespeare lovers
and Bodleian supporters to join our Sprint campaign to digitize and
publish our First Folio online for the benefit of
everyone, from schoolchildren to scholars.
By making a contribution of any size – from as little
as £20 per page – your support will enable us to
publish a speech, a scene, an act or even a whole
play of the First Folio online, on a specially
created website, which will inspire readers
today and in the future.
The Sprint for Shakespeare campaign aims
to raise £20,000 through a large number of
donations of all sizes.Any surplus beyond the
target will go towards future online projects to
open up the Bodleian collections.
All supporters of this campaign will be recognised
on a special page on this website, with the
opportunity to dedicate their gift to
someone who inspires them.
Like the patrons and
subscribers of books
in the past, the names
will live on with this
digitized book through
this website.
FOR
Shakeßpeare
TO FIND OUT
MORE AND LEARN
HOW TO BE INVOLVED
VISIT OUR WEBSITE
http://shakespeare.
bodleian.ox.ac.uk
B
D
L
S
S
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
http://shakespeare.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

24. 23April 2013:Shakespeare’s 449th birthday
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

25. Research potential:manufacturing processes
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
http://shakespeare.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ — http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
✤ Permanent access
✤ Close digital comparison
✤ Material contexts of the book
✤ Understanding printing

26. Research potential:reception
Photograph:BodleianLibraries
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
http://shakespeare.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ — http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
✤ Permanent access
✤ Close digital comparison
✤ Material contexts of the book
✤ Understanding printing
✤ Understanding bookbinding
✤ Marks of its readers’ use

27. Research potential:discovery
BodleianFirstFolio,flyleaf,f.[π]A1v
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
An Active Swain to make a Leap was seen
Which sham’d his Fellow Shepherds on the Green,
And growing Vain, he would Essay once more,
But lost the Fame, which he had gain’d before;
Oft’ did he try, at Length was forc’d to yeild.
He St[r]ove in Vain, — he had himself Excell’d:
So Nature once in her Essays of Wit,
In Shakespear took the Shepherd’s Lucky Leap
But over-straining in the great Effort,
In Dryden, and the rest, has since fell Short.
http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

28. Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ Dedications
✤ “who taught me to love Shakespeare”
✤ “whose greatest gift to me was education”
✤ “Shakespeare should be available to everyone in the closest
possible form to his original text”
✤ “who is the soul of kindness, goodness and wit, with my love”
✤ “other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
where most she satisfies”
http://shakespeare.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/the-project/supporters/
International commons

29. Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
23April 2014:Shakespeare’s 450th birthday
✤ Publication of a searchable, machine-readable full text (beta)
✤ Use and reuse: Creative Commons Attribution Only
✤ Collaboration: IT Services TEI consultation; Oxford e-Research Centre
✤ Open source software
✤ The future:
✤ Search
✤ Variant spelling
✤ Improved texts

30. “with the participation of Society”
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
https://www.academia.edu/12103878/_Coniunction_with_the_participation_of_Society_Citizens_Scale_and_Scholarly_Social_Machines
David De Roure and Pip Willcox
‘“Coniunction, with the participation of Society”: Citizens, Scale, and Scholarly Social Machines’
Beyond the PDF: Born-Digital Humanities, Boston, 27–28 April 2015

31. Social Machines
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Real life is and must be full of all kinds of social
constraint – the very processes from which society
arises. Computers can help if we use them to create
abstract social machines on the Web: processes in which
the people do the creative work and the machine does
the administration... The stage is set for an evolutionary
growth of new social engines. The ability to create new
forms of social process would be given to the world at
large, and development would be rapid.
Tim Berners-Lee with Mark Fischetti
Weaving the Web, 1999 (pp. 172–175)

32. Scholarly social machines
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ Performed, and therefore mutable
✤ Generative
✤ Collaborative, human and machine
✤ Connected, embracing scale

33. Remediating the digital’s materiality
BodleianFirstFolio,TheTragedyofRomeoandIuliet,f.EE3r
Pip Willcox and David De Roure. Forthcoming. ‘“now art thou sociable...now art thou what thou art”: Surfacing TEI Encoding in the Bodleian First Folio’s The Tragedy of
Romeo and Iuliet.’
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Textual layers: visual search,
“like Google Books”
Social annotation:
✤ page
✤ encoding
✤ edition

34. Social editions
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ Metadata, text, image, annotation—including translation
✤ Presentation, resource discovery, transmission, re-use
✤ Partnerships of respect, with credit for creating, curating,
enhancing, linking, augmenting, funding…
✤ A perfectable text?

35. Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
This Is For Everyone
HighlandHistoricComputerMuseum
http://compmuseum.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TBLOlympics-013.jpg

36. Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
BodleianFirstFolio,TothegreatVarietyofReaders(f.A3r)
This Is For Everyone
HighlandHistoricComputerMuseum
http://compmuseum.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TBLOlympics-013.jpg — http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

37. Acknowledgements
Bodleian Libraries
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
✤ We are grateful to the supporters of the Sprint for Shakespeare campaign, to the donors
of the Bodleian First Folio project, and our colleagues who worked on both projects:
✤ http://shakespeare.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/the-project/supporters/
✤ http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/supporters.html
✤ http://firstfolio.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about.html#contact:
Lucienne Cummings, David De Roure, Nicole Gilroy, Arthur Green, Andrew
Honey, Monica Messaggi Kaya, John Pybus, Judith Siefring, Julie Sommerfeldt,
Emma Stanford, Matthew Wilcoxson, Pip Willcox
✤ This work is supported under SOCIAM: The Theory and Practice of Social Machines, a
programme funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
(EPSRC) under grant number EP/J017728/1, and a collaboration between the
Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, and Southampton.
✤ With particular thanks to Giles Bergel, David De Roure, Ian Gadd, Emma Smith,
Richard Sheppard, Ségolène Tarte.
Slides: http://www.slideshare.net/PipWillcox/butwhyallthisfussreducedsize