Peter Harrington showcases Shakespeare’s First Folio at Abu Dhabi Art

Scholars, collectors, and lovers of English literature will have the rare opportunity to view – and for interested institutions or a private collectors – acquire, one of the most important books ever printed, William Shakespeare’s First Folio (1623).

Presented by world-leading rare book firm Peter Harrington, a copy of this cornerstone literary work, will be offered for sale at £4.5 million at the upcoming Abu Dhabi Art fair, taking place from November 19–23 at Manarat al Saadiyat. It is one of only 24 copies to remain in private hands.

No institution, museum, or private collection in the Middle East currently holds a copy of the First Folio. Its appearance in Abu Dhabi represents an extremely rare opportunity for a regional collector or cultural institution to join the ranks of the world’s most prestigious libraries – from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., to the British Library in London – in stewarding one of the world’s greatest literary treasures.

“Shakespeare’s work transcends time and geography,” says Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington. “It has been credited as shaping and solidifying Shakespeare’s influence on the English language. But when you see the excitement the Folio generates wherever it travels – whether to Tasmania or Toronto – you’re reminded how extraordinary it is that a 17th-century book printed in England can still inspire wonder, centuries later and worlds away from where it was first printed.”

Printed in London in 1623 by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, The First Folio is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, preserving thirty-six works – including eighteen that might otherwise have been lost forever. Without this volume, the world would have no Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, or The Tempest.

It took nearly two years to print, with each page laboriously typeset by hand. Several compositors, each with their own quirks in spelling and punctuation, worked on the text, meaning no two copies are exactly alike. Even at the time, the Folio was an expensive, prestige object, with a bound folio costing up to two months’ wages of a skilled worker. Of the roughly 750 copies originally printed, only 233 are known to survive, with just 24 remaining in private hands worldwide.