Rare set of Shakespeare’s folios could fetch £4.5 million

A complete set of the earliest published editions of William Shakespeare’s plays is going up for auction at Sotheby’s next month and could fetch as much as £4.5 million ($6 million). The rare collection includes the First, Second, Third and Fourth Folios — the four major volumes that collectively preserved and defined the legacy of English literature’s most celebrated playwright.

The sale was announced on Wednesday, which marked Shakespeare’s 461st birthday. It’s the first time since 1989 that all four folios will be sold as a single lot, making the May 23 auction an extraordinary event for collectors and scholars alike.

Following Shakespeare’s death in 1616, his plays were compiled into a volume now famously known as the First Folio. Compiled and published in 1623 by John Heminges and Henry Condell — fellow actors and shareholders in Shakespeare’s acting company, the King’s Men — the folio includes 36 plays. Importantly, 18 of these had never been printed before, including Macbeth, The Tempest and Twelfth Night. Scholars widely agree that without the First Folio, these now-canonical works might have been lost to history.

Printed in a run of around 750 copies, only about 230 are known to exist today, with the vast majority held in museums, universities or libraries. One of the few copies remaining in private hands sold for a record-breaking $9.9 million in 2020.

Sotheby’s calls the First Folio “without question the most significant publication in the history of English literature,” and its place in the auction alongside the subsequent three editions adds further weight to the lot’s historic value.

The Second Folio, published in 1632, followed the commercial success of the first edition and updated several elements of the original text. The Third Folio, published in 1663, is considered the rarest of the four. Only 182 copies are known to survive, in part because many were likely lost during the Great Fire of London in 1666. This edition also included seven additional plays, though only Pericles, Prince of Tyre is now widely accepted as authentically Shakespearean.

The Fourth Folio, published in 1685, was the last of the early collected editions printed before the 18th century. It further refined the editorial conventions and set the stage for how Shakespeare’s works would be read and studied for generations to come.

Though the First Folio is the crown jewel in the collection, the value of the full set lies in their collective rarity, historical weight, and contribution to the preservation of Shakespeare’s work. These volumes were instrumental in shaping English drama, literature and even language, cementing Shakespeare’s influence over the centuries.

The set is being described by Sotheby’s as “exceptional” and “museum-grade,” and interest from international collectors, literary institutions, and cultural philanthropists is expected to be intense.

With such few complete sets known to remain in private hands, this auction represents a rare opportunity to own a cornerstone of literary history. Whether it ends up in a private collection or a public institution, the folios continue to symbolise not only the legacy of Shakespeare, but also the lasting power of the printed word.