Folio

Bookseller Peter Harrington is commemorating the 400th anniversary of the publication of William Shakespeare’s First Folio with the sale of a rare collection of works.

An original copy of William Shakespeare’s First Folio, printed 400 years ago, will be offered at Sotheby’s in New York on July 21 with an estimate of $1.5m-2.5m (£1.2m-2m).

A hedge fund billionaire has outbid a group of crowdfunded cryptocurrency fans for a copy of the US Constitution and has agreed to loan it to a museum.

An ‘original and complete’ copy of William Shakespeare’s First Folio of plays set an auction record at Christie's latest 'Exceptional' sale in New York.

ATG’s weekly selection of items that caught bidders’ eyes includes a rare complete set of John Gould’s ‘Birds of Britain’ that doubled estimate in Gloucestershire.

The UK government is seeking a buyer to pay £2.5m for a group of 18th century botanical drawings.

A copy of the second folio of William Shakespeare's plays from 1632 was among the star attractions at the sale of the library of the late Richard Adams (1920-2016), the author of ‘Watership Down’.

A private US collector spent £2.48m at Christie’s, acquiring all four of the early William Shakespeare folios on offer in a specially-staged auction.

A previously unrecorded copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio has emerged at Christie’s. Estimated at £800,000-1.2m, it will lead a specially-staged auction in May comprising just four lots – a copy of each of the first four Shakespeare folios.

An item with an interesting local connection which is for sale at this Saturday’s Norwich Fleamarket is a rare Victorian large folio of European brass rubbings collected by a Norwich cleric.

Edward S. Curtis’ monumental photographic study of ‘The North American Indian’ was one of the most expensive and ambitious undertakings in the history of book production, comprising 20 illustrated text volumes and 20 folios of larger photographic plates.

IN February we revealed how Queen Victoria was an accomplished artist, but now her daughter’s skills have been highlighted by a Surrey auction.

AT Sotheby's sale in New Bond Street on December 7, a copy of John James Audubon's Birds of America set a new auction record for any printed book when it sold to the London art dealer Michael Tollemache for £6.5m (plus premium).

WILTSHIRE auctioneers Netherhampton Salerooms were celebrating a new house record on March 3 after a disbound album of Far Eastern topographical drawings sold for £43,000.

IT set a British auction record for a Shakespeare First Folio and made the highest price ever seen for a printed book at Sotheby’s London (20/12% buyer’s premium) – but hushed voices at the back of the saleroom were suggesting that the £2.5m hammer price represented pretty good value for a near-perfect copy of the most important book in English literature.

DAY two of the sale of the Mira Jacob Collection, held by Bailly-Pommery-Voutier & Sotheby’s (23.92 - 14.35% buyer's premium), was devoted to prints and illustrated books and yielded €780,000 (£530,000) with all but seven of the 166 lots selling.

THE sale of a Shakespeare First Folio is a rare event, but the sale of a copy that emerged out of nowhere is something that comes around only once in a generation.

“EVERY auction house’s dream” is how Rupert Powell, managing director of Bloomsbury Auctions, described the discovery of a Shakespeare First Folio that will provide a fitting centrepiece for the company’s 500th sale on Thursday October 7.