The book was auctioned off by Mills College, a private liberal arts college in Oakland, California.
A rare 1623 book that first brought together William Shakespeare’s plays sold for a record $ 9.97 million at auction on Wednesday, Christie’s in New York said.
The first folio containing 36 of Shakespeare’s plays is one of only six complete copies known in private hands and had a pre-sale estimate of $ 4-6 million.
The identity of the buyer was not immediately known.
Wednesday’s auction price also marked a new world auction record for any printed literary work and shattered the previous record of $ 6.16 million for a first Shakespeare folio set in 2001, Christie’s said. .
“Comedies, Stories and Tragedies” was compiled by friends of the English playwright and poet seven years after his death. It includes 18 plays which had never been published before and which could have been lost, including “Macbeth” and “Julius Caesar”.
The book was auctioned off by Mills College, a private liberal arts college in Oakland, California.
The First Folio marked the first time that Shakespeare’s plays were organized as comedies, tragedies, and stories. The large size of the book – previously reserved for law books and theological works – helped elevate Shakespeare’s status in the years to come, Christie’s book experts have said.
Without the first folio, some of Shakespeare’s most famous lines would probably have been lost, including classics like “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”, from “Julius Caesar” and “If music is food. of love, play on, “from” Twelfth Night. “
Wednesday’s sale was the first time in nearly 20 years that a full copy of the first folio has been auctioned.
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