Research Catalog

The Shakespeare thefts : in search of the first folios / Eric Rasmussen.

Title: The Shakespeare thefts : in search of the first folios / Eric Rasmussen.
Author: Rasmussen, Eric, 1960-
Publication: Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, ©2011.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	PR3071 .R37 2011	Off-site

Details

Description

xv, 212 pages : illustrations; 22 cm

Summary

"The first edition of Shakespeare's collected works, the First Folio, published in 1623, is one of the most valuable books in the world and has historically proven to be an attractive target for thieves. Of the 160 First Folios listed in a census of 1902, 14 were subsequently stolen-and only two of these were ever recovered. In his efforts to catalog all these precious First Folios, renowned Shakespeare scholar Eric Rasmussen embarked on a riveting journey around the globe, involving run-ins with heavily tattooed criminal street gangs in Tokyo, bizarre visits with eccentric, reclusive billionaires, and intense battles of wills with secretive librarians. He explores the intrigue surrounding the Earl of Pembroke, arguably Shakespeare's boyfriend, to whom the First Folio is dedicated and whose personal copy is still missing. He investigates the uncanny sequence of events in which a wealthy East Coast couple drowned in a boating accident and the next week their First Folio appeared for sale in Kansas. We hear about Folios that were censored, the pages ripped out of them, about a volume that was marked in red paint-or is it blood?-on every page; and of yet another that has a bullet lodged in its pages. Part literary detective story, part Shakespearean lore, The Shakespeare Thefts will charm the Bard's many fans"--

Subject

Genre/Form

History
Rare books.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

committed to retain

Contents

A literary detective story -- The most hated man in England : the Gondomar copy -- First Folio hunters -- A Cuban fraud : the Durham University copy -- The waiting is the hardest part -- Unrecovered : the Manchester University copy -- The Pope's sticky fingers -- A close personal relationship : the Pembroke copies -- Nationalism, bullets, and a recovered treasure -- The bibliomaniac : the Sir Thomas Phillipps copy -- Looking into Shakespeare's eyes -- Fell in the weeping brook : the Fiske Harris copy -- Got to get ourselves back to the garden -- The King's companion : Royalist copies, Puritan copies -- A literary thief, a bootlegger, a shoe salesman, and Hitler : the Williams College copy -- Why is 'The Whore of Babylon' well thumbed? -- Alienated : the Hereford Cathedral copy -- Creative control -- "Purloined & embezzled" : the William Beeston copy -- The world's worst stolen treasure -- Appendix. The making of the Shakespeare First Folio.

ISBN

9780230109414
0230109411

LCCN

2011028287

OCLC

706021013
SCSB-12195903

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library