The first popular narrative history of Shakespeare’s First Folio, the world’s most obsessively pursued book

In this engaging audiobook, The Book of William, author Paul Collins explores the remarkable journey of William Shakespeare’s First Folio of 1623. Narrated with clarity and enthusiasm, Collins takes listeners through five acts that examine the Folio’s curious rise over four centuries. From a dizzying Sotheby’s auction of a pristine copy to the Fleet Street dealings of the eighteenth century, and the obsessive pursuits of the nineteenth-century collectors, each chapter encapsulates the allure and history of this iconic book. As the narrative unfolds, Collins also speculates on Shakespeare’s cross-cultural future in a digital age, detailing the Folio’s adventures from attics to ocean depths, and how it ultimately became immortal.