麻豆社

Date: 1970

Size: H: 215mm, W: 150mm

Made in: London/Glasgow

Made by: Collins (publisher)

Material: Paper

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In this series, we've been looking at Shakespeare's first audiences and the expanding, restless world they inhabited. Today we're looking at something very different: how Shakespeare's audience left the Globe and became the whole world.

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The publication in 1623 of Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, more commonly referred to as the First Folio, meant that Shakespeare's plays were preserved for future generations. Over the last 400 years his words have travelled across continents and have been translated into hundreds of languages, speaking to all of us about our hopes, our fears and our dreams.

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Today's programme looks at some of the many copies of Shakespeare's plays in existence today, and we speak to some of the people whose lives his words have touched.

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Private collection

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• Shakespeare's completed works, often called the First Folio, was the first exclusive play collection in book form
• The First Folio, published in 1623, is 908 pages long. It's 14 inches by 9 inches, and 3 inches thick
• There were three further amended versions - the Second Folio in 1632, the Third Folio in 1664 and the Fourth Folio in 1685
• There are 232 known copies of the First Folio in existence
• A First Folio sold in 2002 for 7 million dollars

Matthew Parris presents the biographical series. Poetry curator Daisy Goodwin nominates the Bard, William Shakespeare. She is joined by Dominic Dromgoole of the Globe Theatre.

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James Naughtie goes backstage as the Royal Shakespeare Company celebrates its 50th birthday. James follows Michael Boyd and company prepare the new production, Macbeth.

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Melvyn Bragg discusses whether the work of William Shakespeare is indeed 'not of an age but for all time' or merely increasingly irrelevant museum pieces embalmed in out of reach language.

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Melvyn Bragg discusses what we know about the life of William Shakespeare, a tantalising conundrum that has exercised minds since the day the playwright died.

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Sue MacGregor reunites the core negotiators and key campaigners involved in the secret talks which ultimately led to the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990.

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