“Not from his plays. From court records,” she said. “It was a very litigious age, believe it or not, and we have many court records from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that document Shakespeare’s business life as well as his real estate assets since he was a businessman and an investor. We learned the most about him when the family applied for a coat of arms.”

“So how was the First Folio put together if no one had the pages from the plays?” I asked.

“More than likely from prompt books. And there were what are called ‘fair copies’ of the plays that existed.” She stood up and took off her glasses, cleaning them absentmindedly on her scarf. “Would you like to see a First Folio? And I can give you a tour of the library as well—especially the Tudor Great Hall.”

“I would.”

“Come with me.”

We took a tiny elevator down one level to the basement where the vault was located. The anteroom had more dark paneling, glass cabinets containing figurines from Shakespeare’s plays and busts of the Bard that were no doubt collectors’ items, along with a couple of antique chairs tucked in corners, and a beautiful Oriental carpet. It looked as if it could be the waiting room of a Fortune 500 company CEO. The substantial-looking exterior door to the vault was open.

“It’s going to be cool in here,” Tana said as she swiped her badge to unlock the interior steel door. “We keep the temperature at fifty-nine degrees with fifty-five percent humidity to protect the manuscripts and documents. In case of a fire, we have a system that removes the oxygen from the air—literally pushes it to the ground—to give the fire nothing to feed on. If you’re ever caught in here when that happens, you need to crawl out of the place if you want to live. And be fast about it.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” I said.

She grinned and led me into a room filled with rows of book-lined shelves that went from floor to ceiling. We walked down a narrow corridor to the back of the room.

“Are all these books about Shakespeare?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “our collection is much broader. It dates from 1475 to 1714—the period of the reign of the Stuarts in England. That said, we own more First Folios than anywhere else in the world.”

“How many are there?”

“Between five hundred and seven hundred and fifty were printed. Of those, two hundred and thirty-five are extant. The Folger owns eighty-two.”

“Eighty-two? That’s more than a third of the number of copies still in existence. Why does a private American library own more First Folios than anyplace else?” I asked. “More than a British library or, say, the Globe Theatre in London?”