University of Toronto

The Fisher Library’s copy of the First Folio was one of the star attractions when the library first opened in 1973. It was donated by Sidney Fisher, who had acquired it in 1955. The first owner who left any evidence of possession was John Lloyd of Aston and Foxhall, who placed his handsome armorial bookplate on the front paste-down. From there, it passed through several hands, and crossed the Atlantic Ocean at least three times, before Sidney Fisher’s purchase. The Fisher copy was bound – or, more likely, rebound – in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth centuries in full calf with a gilt tooled back, and was later rebacked. It has been referred to as the ‘rosebud copy’ because of the impression left from a long-ago pressed rosebud between the leaves around page 395. Another of its distinctive features is the remains of an original deckle edge at page 139 (last group) where a leaf was folded in before the sheets were trimmed and bound.