To understand Shakespeare’s world-wide popularity, a basic understanding of print is needed. How did all those copies of folios and plays get into people’s hands?

Fortunately, today we visited the St. Bride Library and received a ‘how to’ lesson to printing. We were met by Nigel, who gave us a quick history of printing -- from how the ink and paper are made to the arrival of the printing press and first books in England.

The process of using the printing press is an extremely slow one. First, everything must be assembled by hand. Each font type has letters on tiny blocks that have to be precisely arranged to form words. Once the letters have been lined up and covered in ink, a piece of paper is pressed against the blocks to produce a page.

Nigel shared 2 versions of the First Folio. They were radically different from one another. The first, produced shortly after Shakespeare’s death, was printed in a traditional Old English style font. The other, printed about 200 years later, used a boxy style lettering and was highly decorated on the edge of each page.

Extra Credit: Learn about copyrights.

British Trivia: Monks and Friars. This was a printers’ term used in the 18th century that described errors in the printing process. Letters with too much ink that smudged on a page were called ‘monks.’ Letters that did not have enough ink and came out faint were called ‘friars.’ Who knew?

Don’t judge a book by its cover,

Tired feet?: Have a seat while riding the Tube!

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