Artistic Collection Of Tiny Shakespeare Books At Yale British Art Center

“Knowing I loved my books, he furnish’d me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.”

Prospero made that statement in Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” but it could just as well have been said by Neale Albert.

Albert began collecting miniature books — no more than 3 inches in height, width or thickness — decades ago, and after a while began concentrating on tiny volumes of Shakespeare’s works. About 10 years ago, Albert donated many of his little books to a museum in memory of his late daughter and started collecting Shakespeare books all over again.

Rather than just seeking out and finding already-published books by the Bard, Albert commissioned bookbinding artists from around the world to create tiny Shakespeare books whose covers were as beautiful as the writings inside.

Albert gave the artists no instructions. He just sent out the request, let them do what they wanted and let himself be surprised when the package arrived in the mail. “Given the freedom and motivation, they worked hard for me,” doing their best work, Albert said.

The collection of Shakespeare books amassed by Albert and his wife, Margaret, is on exhibit at Yale Center for British Art. “The Poet of Them All” includes about 100 items owned by the New York City-based collectors. Neale Albert graduated from Yale Law School in 1961.

Miniature books are “a wacky part of the book world,” said book historian and binder James Reid-Cunningham. “The bindings are meant to be … kinetic sculptures.” The Albert collection is a promised gift to the museum, curator Elisabeth Fairman said.

Many artists created designs based on the text in the Shakespeare work they chose. Fairman has a special appreciation for these selections. “When they engage with the text, it makes it a lot more interesting,” she said.

Eleanore Ramsey’s “Macbeth” book shows a golden crown sinking into a whirlpool and flames, as three pairs of watchful eyes — representing the three witches — glare from the edges of the whirlpool. Julian Thomas’ “The Tempest” is a green and gray image of a storm at sea, dotted with gold stars. Nicky Oliver’s four-play volume of “King Henry VI, Part 3,” “King Richard III,” “King Henry VIII” and “Troilus and Cressida” is made from red-dyed goatskin. The covers and page-edges are splattered with even more red, to reflect “royalty, bloodshed, power, corruption, greed and murder,” Oliver writes in the book’s catalog.

Many of the books are accompanied by cases that also reflect the plots in the books. Philip Smith’s “King Lear” shows the face of a weary king on the cover, the page edges colored royal purple. The book’s case is the head of a king made from balsa wood and leather. Mia Leijonstedt’s “Antony and Cleopatra” is accented with papyrus, the thick paper invented in ancient Egypt. The book’s wrapper hides snakeskin under the binding, symbolic of Cleopatra’s suicide by snakebite. George Kirkpatrick’s “King Henry IV, Part I” is a lovely silver-embossed book that rests inside a small replica of King Henry’s tomb.

Some works reflect the times Shakespeare lived in. One folds out, accordion-style, into a paper replica of an Elizabethan neck ruff. Other books pay homage to the Globe Theatre or have images of Shakespeare himself.

Included in the show are several volumes of “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” the Cole Porter song (from “Kiss Me, Kate”) paying homage to Shakespeare. (The exhibit takes its name from lyrics of that song, “But the poet of them all who will start ’em simply ravin’ is the poet people call the Bard of Stratford on Avon.”)

Contemporary designs of tap-dancing gangsters, chic Champagne-swillers and abstract patterns thematically reflect the 20th-century sophistication of Porter. But as if a reminder of the tragic origins of the comic song, Sean Richards’ “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” book is encased in a blood-red skull. As Porter wrote, “If you can’t be a ham and do Hamlet, they will not give a damn or a damlet.”

“THE POET OF THEM ALL: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND MINIATURE DESIGNER BINDINGS FROM THE COLLECTION OF NEALE AND MARGARET ALBERT” will be at Yale Center for British Art, 1080 Chapel St. in New Haven, until Aug. 21. britishart.yale.edu.