Four centuries of the Bard’s great book

The title page of the First Folio, 1623.

Four hundred years ago this spring, in a dim, grimy and smelly — yet still prestigious — printing shop in London’s bustling Barbican, a major project was more than half-way completed.

Begun early the previous year at William Jaggard’s premises, at the sign of the Half-Eagle and Key, it was a huge task that would produce the single most important and influential book in world drama —…