The Shakespeare First Folio
Edited by Doug Moston

I was separated from my father, an actor and a carpenter, when I was 4. We met again when I was 17. Our communications were strained and difficult. I was pursuing a theater education, studying as a playwright and an actor. I had been into Shakespeare since I was young, and he knew that. One day he sent me a copy of the First Folio, which for all intents and purposes is the authority on what Shakespeare actually wrote. It was a perfect gift from him: an acknowledgment of who I was, who he was, and who I was becoming. There's a great sense of tradition in the First Folio—the intimacy of it, the lettering (the f's that replace the s's), the knowledge that these texts were written for his actors. Being able to get that close to the text and its history was something that made me feel much closer to my father.