Henry and Emily Folger: A Shakespearean Love Affair

The First Folio at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. The First Folio is the earliest known printing of 36 of Shakespeare's plays. Public Domain

Henry Clay Folger (1857–1930) was born in the metropolis of New York City. Emily Clara Jordan (1858-1936) was born in the small town of Ironton, Ohio. Their education and passion for William Shakespeare would eventually make them inseparable.

Folger was a scholarship student at the private Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn, New York, and later attended Amherst College from 1875 to 1879. Folger showed interest in and a talent for the arts, joining Amherst’s Glee Club, acting in the college’s presentation of “HMS Pinafore,” competing in oratorical contests, and winning a Kellogg Prize for his 1876 essay “Pericles before the Areopagus,” and taking first prize in 1879 with an essay on Alfred Lord Tennyson. During his graduation ceremony, he heard a speech by Ralph Waldo Emerson on the subject of Shakespeare, which ignited an interest in the Bard that soon became an obsession.

Henry Clay Folger, one half of the husband-wife duo that collected works of Shakespeare for nearly half a century. Folger Archives. (SophieByvik/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Jordan moved from Ohio to Long Island, and began attending Vassar College in 1875. She was voted president for her class of 36 female pupils and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She excelled in the arts and sciences, and showed concerted interest in debate, music, and theater.

Emily Clara Jordan Folger, wife to Henry Folger and Shakespearean scholar in her own right. Her husband looked to her guidance on purchasing rare copies of Shakespeare's work. Folger Archives. (SophieByvik/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Folger and Jordan graduated college in 1879 and were introduced by mutual friends (siblings Charles Jr. and Lillie Pratt) in 1880. Immediately upon graduating, Jordan began teaching at the Nassau Institute in Brooklyn, while Folger attended Columbia University to study law and began working for Charles Pratt and Company, an oil business connected with Standard Oil. In 1881, Folger was accepted to the bar and became the First Statistical Clerk of Standard Oil of New Jersey.

Building Their Own World

In 1880, Folger purchased Emerson’s 1836 essay “Nature.” After reading it, he inscribed his copy with a line from the essay: “Build therefore your own world.”

Six years after their graduations, Folger and Jordan married, and together they built their own world, composed primarily of each other and Shakespeare. By law, Jordan was forced to quit teaching in order to marry Folger, but soon, money was not a concern. Folger rose within the Standard Oil Company, eventually becoming president (1911) and then chairman (1923) of the Standard Oil Company of New York (later Mobil Oil). He also became a close friend and advisor of John D. Rockefeller. Despite their corporate success, the Folgers lived frugally, never purchasing a home until reaching their 70s. They never had children. Most of their financial resources went to purchasing rare works of Shakespeare.

A Rare Collection

The Folgers purchased their first rare piece in 1889, when Henry bought a Fourth Folio, a collection of Shakespeare’s plays published in 1685. The book cost a little more than $100 (around $3,400 today). The Folgers collaborated to find and purchase rare Shakespearean and Elizabethan works. Book dealers and agents in New York and London represented their interests and kept them abreast of new opportunities. Emily scoured through auction catalogs and marked items of interest. Part of Henry’s evening routine was to read over Emily’s suggestions and assemble a bidding list, which would inform agents of their maximum bids. After an item was purchased, Emily cataloged the purchase, making notes on the piece’s condition, edition, and cost, just in case another similar piece was discovered.

Soon the Folgers’ Brooklyn house became full of books to the point of overflow. The couple began renting warehouse spaces in Brooklyn and Manhattan that Emily maintained.

Henry relied almost solely on Emily’s expertise in the field of rare works and Shakespeare. In his will, he noted “My wife has from the beginning aided me greatly with her advice and counsel.”

Four years after Henry green-lighted the purchase of the Fourth Folio, he was presented with a most rare opportunity to purchase a First Folio. First Folios are the oldest copies of Shakespeare’s plays; they were printed in 1623, just seven years after Shakespeare’s death.

The First Folio, which includes 36 plays, put into print 18 works that had never before been printed. “MacBeth,” Julius Caesar,” and “The Tempest” were among the 18 plays.   First Folios ensured these works would not be lost to history. The Folgers went on to purchase 79 First Folios, making it the largest single collection of First Folios in the world. They also purchased 58 Second, 23 Third, and 37 Fourth Folios.

An Expert and More Works

Surrounded by Shakespeare, Emily became a Shakespearean expert in her own right. In pursuit of a master’s degree, she wrote and submitted her thesis “The True Text of Shakespeare” in 1896, which was well-received by Vassar College and contemporary Shakespearean critics. To exemplify her expertise, for 25 years she kept a diary in which she analyzed New York performances of approximately 125 Shakespearean plays. At times, she made suggestions to actors and actresses, and returned for later performances to see if the thespian had made any adjustments.

Across the Atlantic, in January 1905, news reached Henry that a Swedish post-office clerk had somehow come into possession of the first Quarto of “Titus Andronicus,” Shakespeare’s earliest tragedy, and was planning to sell it. It had been doubted that the 1594 work still existed. When the London firm Sotheran contacted Henry about the opportunity, he jumped at the chance, authorizing a maximum of £2000. Sotheran responded that the offer may not be enough to satisfy the seller, but would nonetheless try. The following day, Henry received a cable: “Bought. Cable immediately two thousand pounds.”

It was just one of many exuberating experiences for the Folgers in their 40 years of tracking, purchasing, and curating rare works. Henry’s 1919 purchase of the 1619 Shakespeare Quartos proved to cost far more than his Fourth Folio, First Folio, or “Titus Andronicus” Quarto. This 300-year-old first attempt to collect Shakespeare’s plays was the only remaining copy in its original binding. The cost? $100,000. Henry happily paid.

Creating a Library

While New York roared through the 1920s, the Folgers sought a location to house their prized library. They considered building in Amherst, New York, and Stratford-upon-Avon―the birthplace of William Shakespeare. In 1928, the same year Henry retired from Standard Oil, they decided upon Washington and hired the French-born and Philadelphia-native architect Paul Philippe Cret to design the library.

The First Folio displayed in the Reading Room at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The Folgers designed the Reading Room to be a welcoming place for scholarship and enjoyment of Shakespeare. Julie Ainsworth/CC BY-SA 4.0

The following year, the stock market crashed, but plans for the Folger Library pressed on. In early 1930, the cornerstone was laid to begin construction for what would become “home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare-related books, manuscripts, art, and artifacts.”

On June 11, 1930, shortly after undergoing prostate surgery, Henry Folger died. Heartbroken, yet determined, Emily saw the project through. Even after the funds Henry had provided for the project proved insufficient due to the economic downturn, Emily provided $3 million from her Standard Oil securities to complete the library.

In 1932, the same year Amherst College presented Emily Folger with an honorary doctorate, the Folger Shakespeare Library was scheduled to open. On William Shakespeare’s 368th birthday―April 23, 1932―with numerous luminaries, including President Herbert Hoover and First Lady Lou Hoover; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Charles Evans Hughes; and Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts, Charles Moore, the doors to the library  opened. NBC radio broadcast the ceremony.

This labor of love and gift to the American people by and from Henry and Emily Folger culminated with Emily presenting the keys to the library to the Board of Trustees of Amherst College.

Emily Folger died on Feb. 21, 1936. The ashes of the Folgers reside in a mortuary urn niche within the library’s Reading Room. The urns are behind a bronze tablet. On each side of the tablet are the Frank O. Salisbury portraits of Henry and Emily Folger. Inscribed on the bronze tablet are the words: “To the Glory of William Shakespeare and the Greater Glory of God.”

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