That theory is no longer widely supported, but a Forum Auctions (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of May 30 did provide an interesting reminder of that attribution.
Estimated at £6000-8000 but sold for £38,000 was a very interesting association item from de Vere’s library: a copy of a book once thought to have be a source for Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.
Not exactly in the best condition, but in a contemporary Oxford binding bearing the armorial device (a boar) of the Earl of Oxford, this was a copy of Delle Guerre de Greci, et de Persi…, a 1565 translation by Matteo Maria Boiardo of a famous history of the origins of the Greco-Persian wars compiled in the 5th century BC by Herodotus.
This very copy was last seen at auction in New York just four years ago. Then, in one of the Sotheby’s sales of the magnificent library of Robert S Pirie, it sold at just $7000 (then £4635).
