The Shakespeare Collection in the British Museum

Summary

Seeing that no fewer than twenty-three early Shakespeare quartos came to the Museum with his library it is hardly fair to quote George III’s remark to Fanny Burney on the subject of Shakespeare, but one is forced to conclude that his alleged attitude to the Bard was not at variance with that of his immediate forebears. For the Old Royal Library, when it came to the British Museum in 1757, had not a single Shakespeare on its shelves!

The catalogue of Sir Hans Sloane's printed books, which formed the Museum's original stock, is arranged in a way that makes it wellnigh impossible to trace the works of a particular author, but it is safe to say that the British Museum Library opened its doors to the public in 1759 almost without a single Shakespeare quarto, or folio, to its name. It owes its collection of early printed Shakespeariana largely to a few generous donors, though, in this as in many other fields, tribute should be paid to those members of the staff, in the days of the Museum's great expansion in the nineteenth century, who bought widely and intelligently.