Tidings do I bring and lucky joys and golden times and happy news of price. Benvolio, Malvolio, and many between have averted a second tragedy with the discovery of another First Folio, in time for the bards 400th year anniversary. It was found on
“The newly discovered Shakespeare First Folio is bound in three volumes. Credit Mount Stuart.” Illustration for The New York Times
the Island of Bute, and authenticated by Shakespeare expert and enthusiast Emma Smith at the University of Oxford. It’s significance is therefore best expressed in her own words:
“Finding it right now is almost crazy,” said Emma Smith…discovering a new First Folio, she added, “is like spotting a panda.”
Between quotations is Jennifer Schuessler of The New York Times, who is paraphrased in the first line. Happy news of price?
The copy in Scotland was not, strictly speaking, totally unknown. It had been listed in the typed catalog of theButefamilylibrary as early as 1896, but its existence seems never to have been made public, even after a census of First Folios in 1902 by the scholar Sidney Lee led more than one millionaire to complain that his prize treasure had not been listed.
Mount Stuart, which is owned by a charitable trust, has recently been trying to assemble a full catalog of its substantial library and art collection, both to attract visitors and to make the holdings accessible to researchers. Alice Martin, the director of collections, said she had pulled the Folio, which is bound in three separate volumes, off the shelf at some point last year.
First Folios are among the worlds most sought-after and valuable books. Christiesrecently announcedthat it was selling what it calls a previously unrecorded First Folio from a discreet and off-the-radar private collection, valued at $1.1 million to $1.7 million.
We, andHamlet, can sympathize with Emma Smith when she says that Shakespeare has a way of driving us toward the brink of insanity. It is debatable though whether the pleasures of reading himare as great as thosehe must have felt while writing, and thereafter: Immortality, millionaire status, and a mansion for a home at Mount Stuart.
2 Comments
Yanni posted on September 27, 2016 at 1:09 am
It is always wonderful hearing about great finds such as this. Shakespeare’s legacy as perhaps the greatest wordsmith of the English language will live on even if works such as these don’t continue to pop up seemingly out of nowhere!
Anto Rondon posted on September 28, 2016 at 5:10 pm
This is very interesting and should be celebrated! Although pandas are no longer in danger of extinction, so I think one can assert that to find a First Folio of Shakespeare out of nowhere is even less probable than to find a panda!