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400-year-old Shakespeare volume found

The frontispiece of the First Folio edition.

LONDON: A 400-year-old volume of Shakespeare stolen in England a decade ago and valued at £15 million has been recovered after a man walked into a library in Washington and asked to have it authenticated.

The police in Durham said on Friday they had arrested a 51-year-old man over the theft of the First Folio edition of 1623, which scholars consider one of the most important printed books in the English language.

It was among seven centuries-old books and manuscripts stolen in December 1998 from a display case at the Durham University library. The university said at the time it would be virtually impossible to sell the books to legitimate buyers, and for almost a decade police found no trace of them.

The mystery began to unravel two weeks ago when a man brought the First Folio to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, and asked to have it verified as genuine. He claimed to be an international businessman who had bought the volume in Cuba.

Staff at the library asked to keep the book while they did research, and discovered it was stolen. They told the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which launched an international search for the man.

The man was arrested on Thursday at an address in the English town of Washington, near Durham. He was being questioned on Friday while detectives searched his home.

The book remains at the Folger Library, one of the world’s leading centres of Shakespearean research. Plans were being made to bring the book to Durham.

American writer Bill Bryson, the university’s Chancellor, called the recovery “wonderful news.”

He said: “Like Shakespeare himself, this book is a national treasure giving a rare and beautiful snapshot of Britain’s incredible literary heritage.”

The First Folio was published seven years after William Shakespeare’s death and was the first collected edition of his plays. Some 750 copies were printed, and about a third have survived, though most are incomplete. Only about 40 complete copies of the book are known to exist.

The stolen copy was acquired by John Cosin, former Bishop of Durham, and was part of the library he established in Durham in 1669. The university said its estimated value, if in perfect condition, was £15 million. — AP

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