Be Inspired: Shakespeare and Me
James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps: Antiquarian and scholar
James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-1889) was a scholar and book collector who produced a pioneering biography of Shakespeare as well as a complete edition of his plays. To support his Shakespearian study, he had an unusual way of collecting his research. He cut up rare and early printed books and glued the scraps into a series of notebooks. There are about 100 of these; all of them contain extracts from early printed books - even First Folios of Shakespeare's plays. He’s said to have destroyed 800 books and made 36,000 scraps!
While he gained a reputation for strange collecting habits, he also generously donated some very rare, early printed works to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, along with his collection of research notebooks.
Image credit
Page from a notebook compiled by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps
1853 - 1865
This scrapbook focusses on Shakespeare's play 'The Tempest'.
See below for an image of Halliwell-Phillipps himself