Overview

• This marks the first auction of a complete set of Shakespeare’s four folios since 1989, scheduled to take place at Sotheby’s in London.
• The First Folio, published in 1623, is considered one of the most significant works in English literature, preserving 18 plays that might otherwise have been lost.
• The Third Folio is the rarest of the set, with only 182 known surviving copies, partly due to losses in the Great Fire of London in 1666.
• The folios were originally compiled by Shakespeare’s close friends, John Heminges and Henry Condell, who sought to preserve his legacy after his death in 1616.
• The set being auctioned was reunited in 2016, and most existing copies of the folios are held by institutions, making private ownership exceedingly rare.