Rare Shakespeare Folio Going on Display
Posted By Claire on January 13, 2011
According to a BBC News report, a rare Shakespeare folio is going on display at Durham University after it was damaged by a thief who stole it in 1998.
The university recovered the 1623 first edition folio, worth around £1.5million, after the thief, a local man, was jailed for eight years in July, but it is severely damaged. The thief removed its bindings and some pages, including its title page, in an effort to disguise its origins. The news report says that it is so badly damaged that “when it is touched another part of the sewing breaks and leaves come loose.” Sheila Hingley, the University Head of Heritage Collections, explained that it is going on display to the public in its present state and then, after the exhibition, “we will conserve it and make sure that it has a nice robust binding and will remain in the state it is is in now, it won’t deteriorate any further.”
The folio is one of the earliest examples of a collection of William Shakespeare’s work and it is so sad that a thief has caused such damage to it.
Source
- Rare Shakespeare folio on display at Durham University, BBC News report, 12th January 2011
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Sad indeed. Thanks for sharing! It reminds me of the Cranach pictures a thief stole from a German state gallery (those dupes didn’t notice for quite a while!), and then his mother threw them into the Rhine in an effort to protect her son from prosecution.
I am so glad that they got this back and so angry at the person who stole it and allowed it to decay. What a treasure!