“Before Shakespeare’s plays were books, they were sheets!”
The Shakespeare in Sheets project recreates the author’s early plays and books in printable and foldable sheets of paper.
All editions are offered here as free pdf downloads so that instructors and students around the world can make their own Shakespeare books. For ease of use, we have kept the file sizes relatively small (under 20 MG) and edited or resized images. The sheets on this site can serve as handy models of Shakespeare’s early printed books in the classroom, or you can invite students to make their own books from sheets.
These Shakespeare in Sheets editions are designed by the talented students in the Publishing Sequence in the Department of English Studies at Illinois State University. Each student intern chose a Shakespeare book to analyze, edit, and design. The pages in each book were edited with Photoshop and in InDesign, and then imposed with Smartstream Imposition Software.
Copyright information and editorial statements appear in each Shakespeare in Sheets edition opposite the title page. These statements highlight features of the original copies of each book and then explain the editor’s choices.
All sheets on this site are designed for printing on 11×17 sheets of paper (Tabloid size), which best approximates the size of the paper used in the period for this type of publication. However, if you can’t get your hands on 11 x 17 paper, the files will still print on standard office 8.5 x 11 paper. The books will be smaller but still do the job!
All editions on this site are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0)The project is directed by Dr. Tara Lyons, Associate Professor of English and supported by ISU’s Publications Unit.
Acknowledgements are due to the Folger Shakespeare Library for allowing us the generous use of digital images of the early plays and poems.
Happy Folding!
Why Put Shakespeare in Sheets?
- Read more about the printing of Shakespeare’s early plays
- Learn how to print, fold, and assemble your own Shakespeare quarto
Downloads:
- Hamlet Q2 (1604) Edited by Kaitlyn Blake
- Henry V Q1(1600) Edited by Laura Kimlinger
- King Lear Q1(1608) Edited by Katherine Beste
- Love’s Labour’s Lost Q1 (1598) Edited by Dr. Tara Lyons
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream Q2 (1619) Edited by Katherine Beste
- Romeo and Juliet Q1 (1597) Edited by Carlos Salazar
- The Sonnets Q1 (1609) Edited by Dr. Tara Lyons
- Titus Andronicus Q1 (1594) Edited by Carlos Salazar
- Venus and Adonis (1599) Edited by Carlos Salazar, Kaitlyn Blake, & Jordan Kee [Note: Octavo Editions require an extra fold]