Illegal Behavior

I had the amazing fortune of going to Washington DC over the weekend to visit my brother. I had never been before and though I knew about the obvious attractions; the White House, the Kennedy Center, the Presidential Memorials… etc., what I was not expecting to find was my way into the exclusive Shakespeare library of Henry Clay Folger.

I have to tell you, the staff at Folger’s Shakespeare Library is very accommodating to young ladies travelling on their own. I noticed that few tourists venture further east of the Mall than the Capitol Building and so I sensed a deep and amused appreciation that I, a tourist and not a scholar, a young woman travelling alone, would be one of the few attracted to this library. I also think it was this appreciation that saved my ass later.

When you enter the building, the first and only room you see is a long hall with different relics. It seemed more like a museum than a library… which is fine. Immediately to your left as you enter is a glass case which holds one of the First Folios. The folio was standing up with the dedication page open, and you could flip through the rest of the pages on a digitalized screen beneath. I swiped through the pages of Romeo and Juliet and teared up at the experience. I felt a bit silly but reading the First Folio in person was amazing to me.

But just wait.

My eyes filmed up and my skin prickled at an ELECTRONIC copy of the First Folio… so you can imagine the sensation that coursed through me when I found, behind thick, heavy, dark green velvet curtains, a door that was left unlocked, and entered into none other than the actual Folger’s Shakespeare Library.

It was massive: two floors, stain-glassed windows, mahogany tables, old authoritative looking people behind big desks… and it was frigidly cold. It was what you would expect of any “off-limits to the general public” library. I pretended like I was meant to be there and I walked straight to the first shelf. I skimmed through dictionaries, many faded red/green/blue covered colossal books that all look identical to the next and eventually found The First Folio in person. It weighed at least 10 pounds. I crossed the room and took my seat and flipped through each and every page. The first play was ‘The Tempest’ which I felt was deliciously appropriate. Each time anyone passed by me I buried my nose deeper into the bind of the book. I realized quickly that in order to be there you had to be an authorized “Reader”. That means a professional researcher who has been granted special permission to access the library for research. I could say I was there for research and I wouldn't be lying, but I was no “Reader.”

As you can imagine I, of course, got caught on the way out because the door by which I had entered was locked by the time I was finally ready to leave. I had to go out the main entrance where I was asked to show proof of my “Readers Pass”. I played dumb, the guard played dumbfounded. She sent me back into the library where I looked for another escape route. I was considering a window when the main librarian found me. She luckily was extremely sweet and amused by the situation. She told me she had a feeling I was not meant to be in there but it was her fault for not catching me sooner. She escorted me out and that was that.

I think the only thing missing from this story is a more severe punishment at the end but as I said earlier, there is something kind of great about a young person sneaking into a library to read a book. No? I would admire that and I think that the staff at Folger’s felt the same way.

Overall it was an exceptional trip, and this anecdote was just the cherry on top of the sundae.

**Fun fact: The First Folio was assembled by Shakespeare’s friends/members of his theater company, The King’s Men, a few years after his death. It was a gesture to commemorate their dear friend and a means for his work to live on for years after his life. They compiled all of the pages of his work that they had between them and sculpted together the first full works. They received a publishing deal and printed only around 750 copies of the First Folio. Of those 750, only between 240-250 copies survive today and Folger’s owns one third of them. Due to the printing mechanism of that time, no two copies are exactly the same. Cool, huh?