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Posted on October 25, 2021 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek
A fragment of William Shakespeare’s first folio is headed to auction this week.
But don’t think of it as insubstantial because it’s called a fragment — it actually comprises the entirety of Henry IV Part One.
The Guardian reports that the fragment, which goes on sale Friday, is currently valued at $50,000 to $100,000 and was authenticated by Shakespeare scholar Eric Rasmussen.
A few years after Shakespeare’s death, two of his friends teamed up to have thirty-six of his plays — several of which had never been printed before — published in a collection.
That 1623 collection is what’s now known as the first folio; about 750 copies were published, and 233 are known to have survived to present times, according to the Guardian.
You can read more about and see the first page of the thirteen pages of Henry IV Part One that are up for auction in the Guardian.
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Categories: Today in Books