Henry Clay Folger was one of the preeminent book collectors of the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth. He collected English titles and was particularly interested in Shakespeareana. This passion resulted in a Shakespeare library unrivaled for its quality and size--a library that he generously donated to be administered by the trustees of Amherst College for the use of scholars worldwide.

Henry Clay Folger was born to Henry Clay and Eliza Jane Clark Folger in New York City on 18 June 1857. He descended from Peter Folger, who had bought Nantucket Island from Native Americans. He attended the Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn, where he held a scholarship donated by Charles Pratt, president of the board of trustees of the academy, partner of John D. Rockefeller, and father of Folger's close friend, Charles M. Pratt. After graduating from Adelphi, Folger entered Amherst College...