The Queries

Where are William Shakespeare's Manuscripts?

Possibly burnt to cinders in the Great London fire of 1666 or...

October 1598
Edmund Spencer's castle in Kilcolman was burnt to cinders

1613
The Globe Theatre

1621
The Fortune theatre was burnt

September 1666
The Great London Fire. Direct line of the fire was the Bacon-House

1678
Bacon’s chambers, says Mr. Pearce, were in No. 1, Coney Court, which formerly stood on the site of the present row of buildings at the west side of Gray’s Inn Square, adjoining the gardens. The whole of Coney Court was burnt down by a fire.

1684
Bacon's Chambers at Gray's Inn when Meautys took possession of them

1731
Cottonian Library

1780
Northumberland House

Who arranged for the publication of the First Folio, that was sold “on 13 July, 2006 for £2,808,000 ($5,153,242) which is the highest price paid for a First Folio of Shakespeare at auction in the UK” according to an article in Rare Book Review Magazine (July/August issue); “The final bid was successfully made by the London book dealer Simon Finch Rare Books.”

Possible Answers:

Edward D. Johnson, The First Folio: "The Folio must have been one of the most remarkable specimens of typography of the period. It was got up in sumptuous style and regardless of expense. Whoever was financially responsible for its production would naturally desire it to be as perfect from error as possible. How, then, are we to account for these misprints and mispaginations which are too numerous and glaring to escape the notice of the veriest printer's apprentice The anomaly between the costliness of the volume and the slovenly editorship suggest that this seemingly culpable carelssness was actually deliberate and intentioanl."

Ignatius Donnelly, The Great Cryptogram, vol. i: "It must have required the advance of a large sum to print it. Where did the money come from? It could not have been printed for a less sum than 1.000 pounds of our money. No one of Shakpser's blood or estate had anything to do with the expenses. The men who put their money in the venture were W. Jaggard, Ed. Blount, J. Smithweeke and W. Aspley. Yet these businessmen did not even secure a title to the work...and no one ever set up any claim to proprietorship."

Alfred Dodd, The Personal Poems of Francis Bacon: "There is thus a financial mystery as well as a literary one."

Lochithea: "Follow the money."

Did Shaksper the actor know the Earl of Rutland? Did he hear of his adventures in Elsinore (1603) in Denmark that is retold in Hamlet?

1613: Burbage is employed by Lord Rutland’s steward to paint his master’s cognizance, or “impresso,” as it was called, for a celebration at the castle of Belvoir. This was a Coat of Arms with coarse mantlings gaudily painted on canvas or boards to impress the gaping mob with the importance of their Lord. His former associate residing in the vicinity, Burbage procures his assistance, and Shaksper is paid for his services forty-four shillings. Buys with three others house near Blackfriars in London for one hundred and forty pounds; mortgages it back for sixty pounds; “was unpaid at his death.” - Lee, A Life, etc., p. 267.