Call for Papers for a Special Issue of the journal Shakespeare (the organ of the British Shakespeare Association, published by Routledge) on the Topic of "The Shakespeare First Folio: 1623 to 2023"

The guest editors of the journal Shakespeare, Miranda Fay Thomas (Trinity College Dublin) and Gabriel Egan (De Montfort University), invite papers for a special issue on the topic of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio. The special issue will appear in late 2023 to coincide with the book's 400 anniversary. The special issue is open to any study that focusses on the significance, understanding, and reception of this important book in its own time and/or at any time between 1623 and now.

Would-be contributors are invited to take stock of our knowledge of this book on its 400th anniversary and to share new work that sheds light on its creation, reception, significance, and history. All approaches--bibliographical, theatrical, editorial, critical, economic, linguistic, political, historical, theoretical, or statistical--are welcome. Thus contributions might include studies of: particular Folio plays and variants; the responses of four centuries of readers and performers (and how these intersect with gender, race, disability, and class); the activities of collectors and archivists; the work of publishers, printers, editors; the publication and reception of facsimiles; the Folio as the subject of digitalization; and national, colonial, and postcolonial perspectives.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

* The First Folio as a bibliographical event
* The shaping of readerly expectations and the publication of Shakespeare
* The absence of the poems from the First Folio
* Who made the First Folio?
* How has our understanding of this book changed since the last centennial, when the New Bibliography had begun to dominate the study of early Shakespeare texts?
* How much do play titles and/or genre matter, and to whom?
* "Without it we would lack half of Shakespeare's plays" -- is that true?
* To what extent is a play's reception shaped by the company it keeps in a collection?
* Censoring plays on stage and in print -- evidence from the First Folio
* The relationship of Shakespeare’s First Folio to Ben Jonson’s 1616 Folio and/or other books
* How the First Folio prioritizes narratives of single-authorship over collaboration
* Is the language of the First Folio post-Shakespearian?
* The First Folio and the marketplace for books
* First Folios over the centuries, including within the history of editing
* First Folio fetishization: academic, economic, performative as material object, as cultural artefact

Contributions should be scholarly research articles between 5000 and 8000 words long, styled by the Language Association (MLA) rules regarding references, and must not have been published elsewhere before (although reworked papers from conferences are acceptable). Prospective contributions should be uploaded to the journal's portal at:

  https://rp.tandfonline.com/submission/create?journalCode=RSHK

Enquiries may be addressed to the guest editors Miranda Fay Thomas <THOMASMF@tcd.ie> and Gabriel Egan <gegan@dmu.ac.uk>. The deadline for submissions is 1 June 2023 and accepted papers will be published in online-first (= Advance Access) form in November 2023 and later in a printed volume.