London: The first four versions of the work collected by William Shakespeare are expected to be sold at auction next month’s next month.
Sotheby’s Auction announced Wednesday for Shakespeare’s 461st birthday. It said the May 23 sale will be the first since 1989, offering a portfolio of first, second, third and fourth at the auction.
The auction house estimated the sale price to be between £3.5 million and £4.5 million.
After Shakespeare’s death in 1616, his friends John Heminges and Henry Condell collected his plays into a book in the playwright’s troupe The King’s Man.
The photo released by Sotheby’s on Wednesday, April 23, 2025 shows four portfolios of William Shakespeare, published 300 years ago and will be released on May 23 at Sotheby’s in London, and they are expected to be obtained between £3.5 million and £4.5 million. (Sotheby’s ap)
The first collection of works, titled “William Shakespeares’ Comedy, History, and Tragedy”, contains 36 dramas, half of which were first published there. Scholars say that without books, dramas including “Macbeth”, “Storm” and “Twelfth Night” may be lost. Sotheby’s called the volume “undoubtedly the most important publication in the history of English literature.”
About 750 copies were printed in 1623, of which about 230 were to survive. Except a few are all in museums, universities or libraries. One of the few first collections of works in private hands was sold for $9.9 million in an auction in 2020.
The first collection proved to be successful enough, i.e. the updated version, the second collection, published in 1632, the third edition in 1663, and the fourth edition in 1685.
Although the first collection is considered the most valuable, the third is the rarest, with 182 copies surviving. The rarity of the third book is believed to be due to the destruction of some of these stocks in the London Fire of 1666.
The third collection includes seven more games, but only one “Perrix, Prince of Tires” – considered Shakespeare.
