‘The Millionaire and the Bard,’ by Andrea E. Mays - The New York Times
"I am, as readers have probably surmised, speaking of the peculiar
passion of book collecting. The lover in question was Henry Clay Folger,
who made his fortune as one of the presidents and, by 1923, the
chairman of the board of Standard Oil of New York. And the beloved,
which he pursued with unflagging ardor, was a single book: “Mr. William
Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, Published according
to the True Originall Copies.” Printed in London in 1623, seven years
after the author’s death, it is the book known to all lovers of
Shakespeare simply as the First Folio."
Folger managed to acquire more than 80 First Folios, an astonishing
number, far more than any other collector and more than remained in the
whole of the British Isles. To these he added many other related
acquisitions, including rare Shakespeare quartos and a vast collection
of playbills and theater memorabilia. During his lifetime this hoard
remained shut up in safe storage, a monument to the informed
acquisitiveness of a very rich man. But in his last years he began to
plan a great research library, centered around his collection. He
considered Amherst, where he had gone to college, as well as Nantucket,
but rejected both, presumably as too remote. He thought about New York,
but the real estate prices discouraged even him. In the end the Folgers
settled on Washington, D.C.
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