This arrived yesterday, from the Oxfam bookshop, Wanstead (London) - a facsimile Shakespeare first folio. It cost me nearly £75 (including the courier charge), but it's worth every penny: in fact, I think I may have got a bargain, as it is in pretty much as-new condition.
I owned a FFF once before - I bought it from a second-hand bookshop in St Albans about 20 years ago. it was reduced in size by 20%, and was published in the 50s. A few years ago, I gave it to my niece, who is an actress. This one is full-size, and is consequently ENORMOUS - 14 1/4" x 9 3/4". It is from various first folios in the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, which contains by far the world's largest collection of FFs: 82, of 235 known survivors.
The odd thing about the first folio is that, although copies go for seven-figure sums on the rare occasions that they come on to the market, they are not rare - 235 copies of an early 17th-century book is quite a lot - and neither is it a particularly outstanding example of the printer's craft, nor the Droeshout engraving of the engraver's art. It is valuable for its supreme importance: without it, we might have lost a number of WS''s most important plays, including Macbeth and Measure for Measure, which first appeared in it.
Sorry the photos are a bit blurry - I think the camera lens may have been dirty. I'll clean it up and take some more.
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzEf1M
