'Comedies, histories and tragedies, published according to the true originall copies by William Shakespeare', 1632...

Around half of Shakespeare’s plays were published during his lifetime, deriving from multiple sources with the texts of different versions often varying considerably. Seven years after Shakespeare died his friends and fellow actors, John Heminges (1566-1630) and Henry Condell (1576-1627), compiled all his plays together, including ones which had never been published before, in what is now known as the First Folio. The Royal Library has a copy, RCIN 1047467. This is the second edition, known as the Second Folio, printed in 1632. It has been annotated by Charles I: on the fly-leaf he has written 'Dum Spiro Spero' (While I Breathe, I Hope), and on the contents page he has written the names of some of the characters of the comedies next to the titles of the relevant plays.