Shakespeare wrote at least 38 plays and 154 sonnets, as well as other poems. Most of his works were written between 1589 and 1613.

The Library holds copies of many works by and on Shakespeare. This exhibit shows some of the highlights.

Shakespeare’s plays appeared in four folio editions in the seventeenth century, in 1623, 1632, 1664 and, as shown here, in 1685. This fourth folio contains 43 plays, including 7 which were attributed to Shakespeare, but whose authorship was later disputed.

The large volume is a prestigious work as this format of printing was reserved for important volumes of well-known authors.

This fourth folio served as the basis for eighteenth century editions of Shakespeare’s plays.

Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, or ‘The Scottish Play’ is believed to have been written between 1599 and 1606.

The tragedy tells the story of the great Scottish warrior Macbeth. He receives a prophecy from three witches saying that he will become the king of Scotland.

After this he becomes consumed by ambition and kills the reigning king, taking the throne for himself.

The title page for this play depicts Act V, Scene I. Lady Macbeth is seen sleepwalking and rubbing her hands as if to rub off the blood of the people whom she and Macbeth have killed.

Peter Whalley was an English clergyman, academic and writer.

In 1748 he published his Enquiry into the Learning of Shakespeare, in which he discusses Shakespeare’s classical education.

Whalley thought that Shakespeare was far more learned than many critics had previously believed.

He compares fragments written by Shakespeare with fragments from classical works, and claims that Shakespeare must have known Latin, Greek and Danish.

Whalley uses a fictitious conversation between two people to give both sides of the argument.

In the mid-eighteenth century the Bluestocking Society, a group of educated, intellectual women who met at literary salons, was established. The group was led by hostess and literary critic Elizabeth Montagu, cousin of Armagh Public Library’s founder Archbishop Richard Robinson.

Montagu’s Essay on Writings and Genius of Shakespeare was originally published anonymously. Her name did not appear on the text until the fourth edition in 1777.

In this work Montagu criticises the insults aimed at Shakespeare by the French writer Voltaire. Montagu considers Shakespeare to be the best dramatist of all English, Greek and French poets, and a genius.

Lewis Theobald was a textual editor and author. He was a landmark figure in the editing of Shakespeare and in literary satire.

This volume is a reaction to Alexander Pope’s edition of Shakespeare and is one of Theobald’s best known works.

Theobald claimed that Pope had been both too reverent and insufficiently critical to have done Shakespeare justice, and had missed many textual errors.

Interestingly, when Pope published his second edition of Shakespeare, he adopted many of Theobald’s corrections.

The two would continue to have a sour relationship: in the satirical poem The Dunciad (1727), Pope took literary vengeance on Theobald, by using him as the son of the Goddess of Dulness, re-spelled Tibbald, crowning him ‘King of Dunces’.

Another example of Lewis Theobald’s appreciation of Shakespeare is in his imitation of Shakespeare’s style.

This text is an extended allegory of 121 stanzas and is divided into two parts.

In the first section we are introduced to the personification of Poverty who, in a cave full of pictures of human worries, harasses mankind.

The second section describes Poverty in her cave listening to two voices, one praising wealth and the other praising poverty. This pleases Poverty as it shows the extent of her powers.

Theobald himself comments on his imitation,

[…] my imitation is very superficial; extending only to the borrowing some of his Words, without being able to follow him in the Position of them, his Style or his Elegance.

Samuel Ayscough was a librarian and indexer, known as ‘The Prince of Indexers’.

In 1782 he published a catalogue of the then unidentified manuscripts in the British Museum as a private venture. In 1785 he was appointed Assistant Librarian at the Museum.

In 1791 he published an index to the works of Shakespeare to indicate what they were about, to summarise their content and to improve findability.

Indexing passages and words from the works of Shakespeare was a monumental task. The 669 page-long index is a credit to Ayscough’s skill in and dedication to indexing.

Samuel Butler was an English author and translator, known for Erewhon and The Way of All Flesh, semi-autobiographical novels.

Butler held Shakespeare in high regard and had supposedly learned all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets by heart.

He set out to arrange the sonnets and to give them an original order. Butler supported the theory that the sonnets were letters.

In Butler’s words,

The Sonnets are a series of unguarded letters in verse, written as the spirit moved a young poet who has just discovered his own gift […] Such letters inevitably record varying phases of the writer’s mind

Sir Edwin Durning-Lawrence was a British lawyer and Member of Parliament. He is best known for his support of the Baconian theory of Shakespeare’s authorship, that is, that Francis Bacon wrote the works attributed to Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s authorship was first questioned in the nineteenth century.

It was suggested that, among others, Sir Frances Bacon, Christopher Marlowe or Edward de Vere were the true authors.

In this work, Durning-Lawrence compiles evidence in support of Sir Francis Bacon as the true author. He published a number of books on this subject and promoted public debates within the academic community.