Shakespeare’s Unruly Women Exhibition Catalogue

Shakespeare’s Unruly Women was an exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Through essays and artifacts, visitors learned how Shakespeare’s heroines were presented during the Victorian era. In performances, art prints, and bowdlerized editions of the plays, these women were used to teach proper moral behavior, signal the cultural aspirations of an emerging middle class, and provide insights to a woman’s character through the study of each heroine’s physiognomy.

On the cover, I used the script face Kunstler for contrast and to provide the word “unruly” with a certain irony. The carefully selected details contrast beautiful, concerned eyes with a menacing hand clutching a dagger. My choice alludes both to unruliness (clutching a dagger!) and to the popular Victorian idea that one can determine character by physical characteristics such as eye shape. On the back, the full image provides the reader with the original source, at the same size. This is both out of respect to the original work and to provide the viewer with the fun of flipping the book back and forth.