(Alison Flood’s article appeared in the Guardian, 10/25; Photo: William Shakespeare Photograph: Stock Montage/Getty Images.)
An original fragment from the first folio, estimated to be worth up to $100,000, will be auctioned this week
An “exceedingly rare” fragment from Shakespeare’s first folio, comprising the whole of the play Henry IV Part One, is to be auctioned this week.
The play has been authenticated as an original fragment from Shakespeare’s first folio by Shakespeare scholar Eric Rasmussen. The first folio was published in 1623 and is the earliest collected edition of Shakespeare’s works. When Shakespeare died, in 1616, only 17 of his plays had been printed. Without the first folio, which collects 36 plays, 18 of his works, including Macbeth and The Tempest, might never have survived. The works were collated and edited by John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s actors and friends, and approximately 750 first folios were printed. Two hundred and thirty-three are known to survive today.
The fragment has been valued at $50,000-$100,000 (£36,000-£73,000) by Holabird Western Americana Collections, which will auction it on 29 October. Officially titled The First Part of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of Henry Sirnamed Hot-Spurre, it consists of 13 printed antique paper pages and is one complete play in the two-part production of Henry IV.
