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Shakespeare & Beyond

The smallest Shakespeares in the Folger collection

Miniature copy of The Children's Shakespeare
Miniature copy of The Children's Shakespeare

Visitors to the Folger vault frequently ask: What’s the largest item in the collection? The oldest?  The most valuable?  But it’s the collection’s smaller items that often reveal the most extraordinary craftsmanship. Here we look at the smallest Shakespeare items, a book and a pin.

Henry Altemus’ magnificently miniature copy of The Children’s Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit is the Folger’s smallest Shakespeare edition. Published in 2005, it’s an abridged replica of the edition published by Altemus in 1900.

Smallest Shakespeare items in the Folger collection

Altemus shrunk the book to 23 millimeters—you would need 677,005 copies of it to equal the size of the collection’s largest item, James Northcote’s 9 x 11-foot painting of the tomb scene from Romeo and Juliet!