The Garrick Collection at the Folger Shakespeare Library: New Initiatives

Abstract

David Garrick might be considered the Elvis of his age. His image appeared everywhere, not only in paintings, statues, and engravings, but on jugs, tiles, matchboxes, watch fobs, textiles, loving-cups—almost anything to which an image could be attached. If the eighteenth century had worn T-shirts, undoubtedly he would have been depicted there as well. A theatrical impresario and popularizer of Shakespeare, Garrick seems to have known everyone in the artistic and literary circles of the time, and to have been recognized by thousands more. One might say that he single-handedly created the Shakespeare “industry.” He produced twenty-four of the plays, acted in nineteen Shakespearean roles, and orchestrated the great Shakespeare Jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1769, the first event that made that sleepy country town a tourist mecca. Today scholars who want to work on Garrick make their pilgrimage to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., site of the largest collection in the world of Garrick manuscripts and related items, including a ticket for the Jubilee Oratorio, signed by George Garrick, the actor's brother (Fig. 1), and the intricately carved Rococo chair made for Garrick's Temple of Shakespeare around 1756.