The coolest thing I saw in D.C. wasn’t even at the Smithsonian. It was a Shakespeare First Folio at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Though 18 of Shakespeare’s plays were printed during his lifetime, no full collection was published before his death in 1616. In an attempt to curate the collection of his works, two of his friends worked after his death to assemble them. Using a number of sources, John Heminge and Henry Condell issued Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. This is now known as the Shakespeare First Folio.

The Shakespeare First Folio contains 36 plays in total, all but three that are generally accepted by scholars as Shakespeare’s (these are Pericles, Prince of Tyre and The Two Noble Kinsmen). Unfortunately, Heminge and Condell didn’t get their hands on two plays attributed to Shakespeare, but which are now lost: Cardenio and Love’s Labour’s Won.

The Folger Library’s Collection

According to scholars, fewer than 750 copies of the First Folio were printed. Some 233 copies are known to still exist, though some “original” copies have actually been cobbled together or supplemented with non-original pages. Amazingly, 82 copies of the Shakespeare First Folio (or 35 percent of the world’s total) are in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library, which is located east of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

They had one on display.