Shakespeare’s Global Reach

We celebrate this week’s campus kickoff of Shakespeare in Wisconsin 2016 with a page from a travel narrative by Anna Birge, part of the Cairns Collection of American Women Writers in Special Collections — the page represents both the abiding appeal and global reach of Shakespeare’s works. For March 21, 1908, during a stay at Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo, Birge recorded: “We had an interesting time in the Bazaar. I bought two books for Ted. One is a play of Shakespeare’s and the other a story of Dumas’–all in Arabic. The guide Achmed told me what they were” (vol. 1, p. 170). The full narrative has been digitized as one in a series of Cairns Collection travel diaries and journals  the UW Digital Collections.