image from “The Poems of William Shakespeare, According to the Text of the Original Copies, Including the Lyrics, Songs, and Snatches Found in His Dramas,” Essex House Press, 1899 PR2841 A2 E55, Rare Books

You are invited to join the University of Utah’s Friends of the Library for its Sixth Annual Book Collector’s Evening. Keynote speaker this year is Paul Collins, author of Book of William: How Shakespeare’s First Folio Conquered the World.”

“From the Bottom of the Sea to the Great Salt Lake: The Many Lives and Deaths of Shakespeare’s First Folio”
Shakespeare’s First Folio of 1623 is a unique work: the sole edition edited by those who actually knew and worked with the playwright. Yet for its first century, it was simply another used book in bookseller stalls. The stories of individual copies are the story of books themselves: of volumes lost through shipwreck and fire, of copies scribbled on by children and stored in bank vaults, and of a cultural heritage read and gazed upon by millions. This is the story of these volumes — where they live, how they sometimes die, and their unlikely route to literary immortality.

Paul Collins is a writer specializing in history, memoir, and unusual antiquarian literature. His nine books have been translated into eleven languages, and include The Book of William: How Shakespeare’s First Folio Conquered the World (2009) and Edgar Allan Poe: The Fever Called Living (2014). Collins’s recent work includes pieces for the New Yorker, Lapham’s Quarterly, and New Scientist. In addition to appearances on NPR’s Weekend Edition as its “literary detective,” he is also the editor of the Collins Library imprint of McSweeney’s Books.
Collins lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is Professor and Chair of English at Portland State University.

A selection of pieces from the Marriott Library’s rare book collections highlights the story. Dinner, a silent auction of wonderful books for your own library, and an opportunity to share your book collecting adventures with fellow bibliophiles await you.

Its really fun!

March 22, 2016 / 6:00PM
Alta Club
100 East South Temple
Salt Lake City, UT

For reservations contact:
Judy Jarrow by March 16, 2016 at 801-581-3421 or judy.jarrow@utah.edu
$50 per person

Shakespeare is coming! The First Folio will arrive at the City Library in October.