‘Exceedingly rare’ folio edition of Shakespeare’s Henry IV for sale

An “exceedingly rare” fragment from Shakespeare’s archetypal folio, comprising the full of the play Henry IV Part One, is to beryllium auctioned this week.

The play has been authenticated arsenic an archetypal fragment from Shakespeare’s archetypal folio by Shakespeare student Eric Rasmussen. The archetypal folio was published successful 1623 and is the earliest collected variation of Shakespeare’s works. When Shakespeare died, successful 1616, lone 17 of his plays had been printed. Without the archetypal folio, which collects 36 plays, 18 of his works, including Macbeth and The Tempest, mightiness ne'er person survived. The works were collated and edited by John Heminges and Henry Condell, 2 of Shakespeare’s actors and friends, and astir 750 archetypal folios were printed. Two 100 and thirty-three are known to past today.

The archetypal portion of Henry the Fourth successful an archetypal 1623 transcript of Shakespeare’s archetypal folio Photograph: Holabird Western Americana Collections

The fragment has been valued astatine $50,000-$100,000 (£36,000-£73,000) by Holabird Western Americana Collections, which volition auction it connected 29 October. Officially titled The First Part of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of Henry Sirnamed Hot-Spurre, it consists of 13 printed antique insubstantial pages and is 1 implicit play successful the two-part accumulation of Henry IV.

“The anticipation of owning a portion of the astir important literate enactment extant is simply a once-in-a beingness opportunity,” said the auction house’s president Fred Holabird. “We’re arrogant to contiguous this archetypal transcript of a archetypal folio fragment of Shakespeare’s The First Part of Henry the Fourth. Its caller proprietor volition person literate history.”

The auction location mightiness person enactment a terms connected the fragment, but it added that the pages “of the archetypal transcript ever printed by the astir important fig successful literate history” were “of inestimable value”.

Last year, a implicit transcript of the archetypal folio sold astatine auction for sold for $9,978,000 (£7,253,000), mounting a caller satellite grounds for a enactment of literature. The purchaser was uncommon publication collector Stephan Loewentheil, who said astatine the time: “The archetypal folio is the astir important postulation of plays ever published and revered passim the world. It is an honour to acquisition 1 of lone a fistful of implicit copies of this epochal volume.”