A rare copy of William Shakespeare’s First Folio – one of the most significant books ever printed – will be offered for sale at Abu Dhabi Art for £4.5m ($5.6m), marking a landmark moment for the region’s cultural and literary community.
The volume, printed in 1623, is one of only 24 copies still in private hands worldwide.
Presented by world-leading rare book specialist Peter Harrington, the First Folio will be exhibited at the fair taking place from November 19–23 at Manarat al Saadiyat.
William Shakespeare First Folio on Sale in Abu Dhabi
Its arrival in the UAE represents an extraordinary opportunity for a private collector or cultural institution in the Middle East, where no museum, library or private collection currently holds a copy.
Globally, the First Folio is held by some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, including the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and the British Library in London.
Its appearance in Abu Dhabi brings the region into the orbit of a cultural legacy that has shaped the foundations of English literature.
Pom Harrington, owner of Peter Harrington, said: “Shakespeare’s work transcends time and geography. 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 by Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, the First Folio is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays.
It preserves thirty-six works, including eighteen that might otherwise have been lost forever, such as Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar and The Tempest.
The book took nearly two years to produce, with each page manually typeset by hand.
Several compositors worked on the text, each with their own spelling and punctuation quirks, meaning no two surviving copies are exactly alike.
Even in 1623, it was an expensive prestige object—costing up to two months’ wages for a skilled worker.
Of the roughly 750 copies originally printed, 233 are known to survive, and just 24 remain in private hands.
The Abu Dhabi Art exhibition therefore offers one of the rarest acquisition opportunities in the global rare-book market.
