Some of the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust’s most valuable books were donations, such as the so called ‘Wheler Folio’ named after its donor: Miss Anne Wheler.
It’s a First Folio of Shakespeare’s works published in 1623 and is the book we most associate with Shakespeare. Without the publication of the First Folio, eighteen plays would have been lost and we wouldn’t know Shakespeare as we do today.
The Wheler Folio is one of the three First Folios looked after by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust: the other two include the Ashburnham Folio - purchased from the Earl of Ashburnham, and currently on display in our Famous Beyond Words exhibition - and the Theatre Folio, owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and cared for byt the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
Anne’s brother, Robert Wheler, a solicitor and antiquary of Stratford-upon-Avon, acquired the Folio in 1820. In 1862 Anne presented the book to the Birthplace Library and Museum as part of a collection of books and documents assembled by her late brother Robert.
From the foundation of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust library until about the early 2000s, library acquisitions, both purchases and donations, were recorded in accessions registers; impressive and heavy volumes (approximately 43cm x 36cm). In the accession register, the Wheler Folio is described as “imperfect” and indeed it is the least complete First Folio in our collection.
However, despite its missing and torn pages, this is one of the most generous donations the Birthplace has ever received and, without doubt, one of our most important books. It was conserved in 2020.