To bed betimes…

…to read a good book. Or awake and restless to while away the hours forgetful of your dis-ease. The book of William, the promised blog.

Solopsism central to any understanding of these words reviewing my greed reading this book.

It arrived late and unsigned as promised in the sell but to hell with that. The anticipation and wait was ten times worth it. I’d read some reviews and missed it before a trip to Minnesota in deep nature.

Therefore its arrival was announced by Bugs and Botany Bill who read it before me arrival. It had captivated him as I, and his name too is Will, though Bill as a by-name. ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet’.

It talks of books and the love of books and what it means to love a book. The history of his book is his story of the First Folio. The primary sources for information on SHakespeare, in lieu of his own descriptions of himself, would be the people who worked with him.

Stuttering John Heminges and business savvy Henry Condell had survived the Theatre scene of the late 1570’s, 1580’s, 1590’s and 1610’s.

They retired grand old men of the stage, acclaimed for a hundred supporting roles opposite or in competition with the likes of Richard Burbage, John Lowin, and Edward Alleyne.

And as principal sharers in the King’s Men, what was the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, their wives and extended families ate and slept well. They were not rich but felt compelled they said, to publish these plays for the sake of our Will, their friend.

One might wonder where Dickie Burbage was in all this collecting Will’s plays into Folio. But the reckoning is that could only be done by the people who held the earliest form of copyright by stayin a play in the Stationer’s Register in the first place, the writers and printers.

As Paul explains in his book on Will, William Jaggard knew the old swindlers around Saint Paul’s churchyard, where the incestuous Elizabethan publishing industry kept its intrigues and deals.

Back when the Globe was moved in the winter of 1597/8 SHakespeare and his colleagues hit the big time. They had Court and Public theatres in their pockets. Will’s son had just died a year before and change was due.

Our man was about to embark on a creative period lasting until at least 1609. Extend that to 1613 in collaboration and Will’s passing on chief writers of the company laurels to Fletcher and Beaumont.

Obviously he was unaware he would make history with his writings as he would and will still. Never bothering with their eternal longings after being spoken, performed and presumably forgotten as his next project took over.

After Will’s death on his birthday in 1616 his fellows and friends, whom he remembered in his Will, gathered, or gave the order to gather, as much as could be rescued of Will’s writings, in Quarto and manuscript form. Remember the First Folio meant 18 plays would have been lost, so they must have been in some form of manuscript or scribal copy.

Jaggard made a consortium deal with the actors and other printer holders of Sh. titles and finally and incipiently in 1623, some 6 years after first being approached Jaggard produced a Folio of Histories Comedies and Tragedies that supposedly Will wrote.

I snarfed this book up over a two and a half day period, rendering it as read as any manuscript. I myself put out the light on a persistent wasp using its back cover.

Worsely and briefly, dropped it in the toilet at home while peeing and reading, should have sat. I rescued it in milliseconds or lightnings peed and after drying on an SUV dashboard in 28 Degree Celsius temperatures, read it to the end.

(on a Starbuck’s terrace at highway 10 and QEW with a cold non-sugar espressoed milked iced coffee. Though the book remains free from that particular stain).

But forget the book he wrote here (buy it, well worth it) the other book is preserved in Folio at the Meisei University in Hano, a suburb of Tokyo THE BEST BOOK IS AVAILABLE ON JUST THIS SUBJECT.

And its FREE and it contains something better than a dedicated and funny modern historian. Another Early Modern Will, a Dumfrieshire Scot named William Johnstoune bought a copy of the Histories, Comedies and Tragedies of William Shakespeare sometime around 1627/30.

Better still this Will loved our Will as much as we Wills do here and marked his copy of Will with marginalia and annotations the which kind, patient, and persistent Dr. Akihiro Yamada delivers to your screen at the click of a mouse or tap of your pad.

Imagine being the first commentator on the First Folio?! Not only that imagine the insights gained into how an Early Modern reader read. There is a method to his madness and the good Professor has marked it all up for you, dear Post Modern reader.

And as always a book is not just him who writes it. There is and always will be a whole team of others behind it: the supporting cast and as all directors will say in their speech after a good run, you know who you are!

The book of William lets you know who they are and were who helped bring this book to our consciousness. Thanks Paul Collins!