WHAT IT IS The original collection of the Bard’s great works
WHY YOU WON’T DO IT Its rarity is reflected in its astronomical value
Browsing an antiquarian bookshop offers many puzzles for the avid bibliophile. Is a book collectible? Is it a first edition? Signed? In good condition? But you don’t need to be an expert to know that if you come into possession of a Shakespeare First Folio, you’re onto a good thing.
When William Shakespeare shuffled off his mortal coil in 1616, he left an unrivalled body of literature, but it was to be a further seven years before all of his plays were collected together in one volume. Compiled by his friends John Hemminge and Henry Condell, each edition in the print run of a mere 750 was unique, boasting its own array of typographical errors and printer’s corrections. It sold for £1, equivalent to US$200 in modern money. These days experts believe that around 230 copies survive, mostly owned by major institutions – the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., for example, accounts for 82 copies alone.
But what if you want one in your own study? Your best option is to be very rich. You’ll definitely need more than that original £1 – or even the inflation-adjusted US$200. You will also need some patience – First Folios pop up only rarely at the auction house, and when one does, super-rich collectors fight it out with museums and libraries. A copy sold in July 2006 fetched US$5.2 million.
If that seems beyond your reach, then why not rely on simple good fortune? Take the example of Anne Humphries, a Manchester housewife whose life was turned upside down in 2004 when she inherited a book from a long-lost relative. The volume, long assumed to be a convincing facsimile, was revealed under expert inspection as a genuine First Folio. The North of England seems to be a good place to locate yourself if you’re taking the ‘lucky break’ route: a few years later another long-forgotten copy turned up in a council storeroom at Skipton Public Library in Yorkshire.
One method we cannot recommend is theft. A copy that turned up at the Folger Library in 2008 was soon identified as the mutilated remains of a copy stolen from Durham University a decade before. It had been brought to the Folger by one Raymond Scott, who lived not far from Durham but claimed to have stumbled across the volume in Cuba. Acquitted of theft, he was nevertheless convicted of handling stolen goods and received an eight-year sentence for his trouble.