Shakespeare Quarto Digitisation Project

The Shakespeare Quarto Digitisation Project is an effort initiated in 2002 by Octavo's Publisher, Czeslaw Jan Grycz, to assemble newly- and consistently-digitised images of each and every one of the 400 or so copies of the Quarto editions of William Shakespeare's plays published before 1642.

The effort is possible through the international collaboration of the libraries holding individual copies of these rare works, and is under the general guidance of Dr Richard Kuhta, Librarian of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. The project will bring together - for the first time - the entire corpus of Shakespeare Quarto editions in a format that will allow examination, study, comparison and research by scholars and students worldwide.

The collection and facsimile and electronic editions will be available for purchase at Octavo's website, while each of the half-dozen participating libraries will be free to provide new public access to the Quartos from its own collection.

The British Library is proud to be associated with this ground-breaking project.