Special visitor

Today Ms. Suslick's and Mr. Rayburn's Shakespeare classes were very pleased to welcome Valerie Hotchkiss, Head of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. She brought with her an early pocket Bible that was written in shorthand as a way of demonstrating a method spies might have used to capture Shakespeare's complex lines during performances. Pirated plays were transcribed and printed as small "quartos," with varying degrees of accuracy. Valerie brought one of these quartos with her, as well as a facsimile of the First Folio. She wisely chose not to bring the real thing across campus, seeing as how another copy recently sold for a giant pile of money. I think we were all quite happy to get a look at the facsimile.