The First Folio: How We Almost Lost “Macbeth”

The First Folio of Shakespeare is a unique literary treasure.  Collected, edited, and published in 1623 by Shakespeare’s close friends and fellow actors John Heminge and Henry Condell, the nearly 1,000-page book collects 36 of the Bard’s plays – 18 of which had never before appeared in print.  Without the First Folio, Shakespearean masterpieces such as Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, and Taming of the Shrew would have been lost forever.  On Sunday, February 14th at 3 pm, Helen Page – Professor Emerita of English at Oakton Community College – and Joseph Page – actor with the Muse of Fire Theater Company – will visit EPL to explore this great book’s fascinating history as part of #DiscoverWill: Illinois Libraries Celebrate Shakespeare’s First Folio.  In anticipation of their lecture “The First Folio: How We Almost Lost Macbeth,” we recently spoke with the Pages via email about the technical definition of a “folio,” Shakespeare’s creative process, the literary significance of the 1623 First Folio, and the “Anti-Shakespeare” movement.

An Evening with Diane Ackerman, March 23rd

“A few years ago, ‘nature’ writers were asking themselves, How can a book be at the same time a work of art, an act of conscientious objection to the destruction of the world, and an affirmation of hope and human decency? The Zookeeper’s Wife answers this question.” Kathleen Dean Moore, Environmental Philosopher

Diane Ackerman, poet, essayist, and naturalist, will be at Oakton Community College on March 23rd at 6:30 p.m. to talk about her narrative nonfiction book, The Zookeeper’s Wife.

Winner of the 2008 Orion Book Award, it tells the story of Antonina and Jan Żabiński, who harbored hundreds of Polish Jews in their Warsaw zoo.  Author Mark Kurlansky called it “a groundbreaking work of nonfiction in which the human relationship to nature is explored in an absolutely original way through looking at the Holocaust.”

This event is free and open to the public.