Rare editions of Shakespeare’s plays could fetch US$6 million at auction
For the first time since 1898, Shakespeare’s First, Second, Third and Fourth Folios will be auctioned in a single lot – by Sotheby’s London on May 23
A set of the first four editions of William Shakespeare’s collected works is expected to sell for up to £4.5 million (US$6 million) at auction next month.
The auction house estimates the sale price at between £3.5 million and £4.5 million.
After Shakespeare’s death in 1616, his plays were collected into a single volume by his friends John Heminges and Henry Condell, actors and shareholders in the playwright’s troupe, the King’s Men.
The First Folio – fully titled Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies – contained 36 plays, of which half were published there for the first time. Without the book, scholars say, plays including Macbeth, The Tempest and Twelfth Night might have been lost. Sotheby’s called the volume “without question the most significant publication in the history of English literature.”
About 750 copies were printed in 1623, of which about 230 are known to survive. All but a few are in museums, universities or libraries. One of the few First Folios in private hands sold for US$9.9 million at an auction in 2020.