The Shakespeare Thefts (7 page)

If you track First Folios, where do you start looking for those that have been stolen? One place to start is with newspaper accounts of sales. In the 1970s and 1980s, the yen was at its zenith, which allowed Japanese collectors to acquire coveted pieces of western art. Most famously, the Japanese insurance magnate Yasuo Goto paid $39 million for Van Gogh’s
Sunflowers
in 1987. This sale got lots of media attention.

What received less media attention, although it did not escape the notice of those in the book trade, was that
Japanese collectors were buying up nearly every Shakespeare First Folio that came on the market between 1975 and 1990. Mitsuo Kodama, then president of Meisei University, located outside Tokyo, directed the purchase of an astounding
twelve
copies. These copies were the basis for Meisei’s magnificent Shakespeare Library, the second largest collection in the world next to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington. Additional copies were purchased for libraries in Kyoto in 1971 and Kobe in 1978. Many of these transactions were brokered by the Yushodo Group, Tokyo booksellers since 1932, of which Mitsuo Nitta is president. My research team and I have examined all of the copies in Japanese libraries. (At considerable personal risk, I might add: The Meisei copies are stored with Madame Curie’s notebooks—which must surely be radioactive.)

There is certainly nothing suspicious about the Meisei, Kobe, or Kyoto copies—all have impeccable provenances. But the migration of many First Folios to Japan during the period in which the Manchester copy was stolen has given rise to some speculation. Manchester University librarians report that “there is a rumor that the book is now in some Far Eastern collection.” The trick is to find out which one.

With twenty popish tricks
.

—Shakespeare’s
Titus Andronicus

One of the better parts of being a folio hunter is getting to hobnob with Shakespearean actors. For these folks, the folios are not just expensive books: They are a direct line to the Word of the Bard. One of the more amusing stories I’ve heard about the Royal Shakespeare Company has to do with a theft of a First Folio.

Well, an unintentional theft.

In 1964, three members of Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company traveled to Rome to participate in a Shakespearean recital in the Palazzo Pio, a lavish auditorium
near St. Peter’s Basilica built on the ruins of the Temple of Venus, which once crowned a theater complex built by Pompey the Great. They were to perform before Pope Paul VI and an audience of two thousand, including the College of Cardinals and many other dignitaries who were attending the Second Vatican Council (the twenty-first ecumenical council in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, which famously addressed the role of the church in the modern world). The occasion was of historical interest in that it was, surprisingly, the first time in recorded history that a pope had ever attended a theatrical performance. The actors brought along the Royal Shakespeare Company’s prized copy of the First Folio, intending for the pope to bless it at the conclusion of their performance.
¹

However, the pontiff had not been adequately briefed.

He gave a rousing speech, starting off with a nod to Shakespeare’s birthday
²
:

We feel it our duty to thank the promoters of this commemoration of the fourth centenary of the birth of William Shakespeare, for the kind invitation which they have extended to this admirable evocation of the life and art of the great poet.

Then he gave thanks to the performers, Dorothy Tutin, Tony Church, and Derek Godfrey:

Particular praise is due to the directors and actors of the Royal Stratford Theatre for their presentation of scenes and recitations from the works of Shakespeare, which we have all enjoyed and appreciated.

He reminisced about visiting Shakespeare’s birthplace many years before:

This brief spectacle brings many thoughts to Our mind, starting with the visit We made about thirty years ago, as an enquiring and hasty tourist, to the city and the home of Shakespeare in Stratford-on-Avon, and continuing with the impression of fantastic riches and psychological truth which We experienced through the limited knowledge which school lessons and private reading gave Us of the work of the great poet.

And he praised Shakespeare himself:

Our enjoyment of the poet’s vision of humanity should not make us overlook the high moral lessons and admonitions contained in his works. We gladly bestow upon the actors and their colleagues, upon all of you and your loved ones at home. Our paternal Apostolic Blessing.

But then, rather than blessing the Royal Shakespeare Company’s treasured First Folio, the pope accepted it as a gift.

One can almost hear the gasps of the actors. How do you correct the pope?

You don’t.

However, the volume did not remain in the Vatican’s library in perpetuity; quiet diplomatic negotiations succeeded in getting it returned to England, presumably unblessed. I say “presumably” because inside the edition now sits a small typed card that recounts the Royal Shakespeare Company’s papal performance, attests that this was the first time a sitting pope had ever seen a stage play, and concludes: “After the recital Dorothy Tutin presented this Folio to Pope Paul VI who blessed it.” This sentence has been scratched out.

Although this was not a true theft, it’s interesting to note that the Vatican does not have a copy of the First Folio. There is only one copy in Italy, and it is housed at the library at the University of Padua, the setting for
The Taming of the Shrew
. (Verona, the setting for
Romeo and Juliet
and a neighboring city of Padua’s in the Veneto region of northern Italy, has had to settle for erecting a statue of Shakespeare’s most famous lovers.)

The Padua First Folio emerged from centuries of obscurity in 1895, when the university’s librarian found it in a box of uncataloged books. Almost immediately Bernard Quaritch, the British rare book dealer, attempted to buy it. But the librarian knew what he had, citing it, in a note refusing Quaritch’s offer (in French), as “une
des plus precieuses raritées.” The Padua copy also has theatrical connections: It contains extensive prompter’s notes from an early acting company.

In the end, the copy of which Pope Paul VI took possession was returned and is still owned by the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. It is kept at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, in Stratford-upon-Avon, at the Shakespeare Center Library. It is known (at least in Stratford) as “the theater copy” to distinguish it from two additional copies owned by the trust. A notable quirk: All of the preliminary pages in the theater copy are what we in the trade call Harris facsimiles—that is, they are pen-andink exact replicas of First Folio pages that were painstakingly produced by a master of replications, a man named John Harris, in the nineteenth century. Harris worked for wealthy owners, and his fakes allowed them to fill in pages that were missing from their folios and so have a “complete” copy. My team and I come across “Harrises” a lot. I’ve always found it strange to have facsimile pages in a book that is prized for being original, but such was the fashion at one time. In the case of this particular copy, being part of a theater where illusion replaces reality, the Harris pages fit.

The Pembroke Copies

The Earl of Pembroke, a handsome youth, who is always with the King, and always joking with him, actually kissed his Majesty’s face, whereupon the King laughed and gave him a little cuff.

—Venetian ambassador at King James’s court
¹

William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, was one of the most important patrons of the arts in the early seventeenth century. Pembroke may well have been the mysterious “Mr. W.H.” to whom the 1609 edition of Shakespeare’s
Sonnets
is dedicated, and
many believe that there was some degree of intimacy between the earl and the playwright. The distinguished scholar Katherine Duncan-Jones points out that a letter Pembroke wrote in May 1619 testifies to his affection for one of Shakespeare’s fellow actors and closest friends, Richard Burbage, who had died in March: “even now all the company are at the play, which I being tender hearted could not endure to see so soon after the loss of my old acquaintance Burbage.” Duncan-Jones reads Pembroke’s absence from this play performed at court as “a deliberate signal of his special personal affection for the leading actor of the age. It was a public display of a private loss.” The play performed that night was
Pericles
. As Duncan-Jones observes, “Pembroke’s ‘tender hearted’ recollection of the dead Burbage may also have encompassed sad memories of the play’s chief author, Shakespeare, dead three years earlier.”
²

William Herbert’s younger brother, Philip, was also a patron of the arts, and the Shakespeare First Folio was dedicated to this “noble and incomparable pair of brethren” (see photo section).

The actors Heminges and Condell wittily assert that since the brothers took such pleasure in Shakespeare’s plays when they were performed, the book itself wished to be dedicated to them: “For so much were your lordships’ likings of the several parts when they were acted as, before they were published, the volume asked to be
yours.”
³
(The Pembroke brothers came to their love of the arts naturally: Their mother, Mary Herbert, was Sir Philip Sidney’s sister and one of the first English women to gain a reputation for her literary works, poetry, poetic translations, and literary patronage, and was said to inspire creativity in all of those around her.)

If the book itself wanted to be dedicated to them, there can be no doubt that pristine copies of the First Folio were presented to both William and Philip upon publication, probably in luxurious custom-made bindings. And yet, in an extraordinarily detailed, contemporary representation of the Pembroke library, the First Folio is nowhere to be found.

This triptych oil painting, completed in 1646 and representing three stages in the life of Lady Anne Pembroke, Philip’s wife, features her standing (in two of its panels) in front of the family library. In this
Great Picture
(which is a monumental eight feet high and fifteen feet wide), attributed to Jan van Belcamp, one can read the titles of the books on the shelves and even of those scattered about on the floor. The forty-six books so prominently featured are all landmarks of English and Continental literature: Cervantes, Montaigne, Chaucer, Sidney, Spencer, Herbert, Donne, Ben Jonson (who had dedicated plays to William Pembroke), and Samuel Daniel (who had been Anne’s tutor).
⁴
Shakespeare is conspicuously and unaccountably absent, a fact noted
by scholars who rightly observe that “in view of the Pembrokes’ patronage, Shakespeare’s absence is a little surprising.”
⁵

Surprising, and very disappointing! One of the most fascinating things that my team and I come across when we examine First Folios is the marginalia—the notes that owners have added to their copies. Imagine what the Pembrokes may have written. Why would Philip’s copy have been left out of that painting? It is possible that his copy was misplaced or stolen before 1646 and therefore already missing at the time the portrait was made. There is no record of William’s copy either. My team and I won’t rest until we find one or both, or evidence of their destruction. I like to imagine them secreted away in some private library, just waiting to be discovered.

In the meantime, we do know the location of another copy, belonging to Glasgow University, that features extensive early annotations by someone who also knew the actors in the King’s Men, Shakespeare’s company, and had seen them perform. On the list of principal actors, the annotator claims to “know” Robert Benfield, John Lowine “by eyewitness” and Richard Burbage “by report.” Beneath William Shakespeare’s name the annotator comments “Leass for making” (perhaps meaning, as my colleague Jonathan Bate suggests, that Shakespeare, as the maker of plays, may have acted less than other actors).

Other annotations record responses to the first few plays in the volume: “stark naught” for
Two Gentlemen of Verona
, “pretty well” for
The Tempest
, and “very good, light” for
Merry Wives
. The annotator characterizes Ford’s mistrust of his wife in the latter play as “a good jealous man’s dilemma.” Passages throughout are marked with “
ap
.”—presumably an abbreviation of “
approbo
” (I approve).

We believe this early annotator may have been Henry Cary, first Viscount Falkland, because his son, Lorenzo Cary, wrote his name on one of the pages. Coincidentally, Lorenzo’s mother, Elizabeth Cary, also was a poet and playwright; her
Tragedy of Miriam
(1613) is the only known play written by a woman in the period.

We know that this copy was acquired around 1780 by the fifth Earl of Inchiquin and later was owned briefly by the Shakespeare scholar James Orchard Halliwell, from whom it passed in 1856 to William Euing of Glasgow. Euing bequeathed it in 1885 to Glasgow University. An interesting feature of this copy is a letter to Euing from Halliwell, which reads: “I have much pleasure in sending you the First Folio, which is neither ‘ragged nor rotten,’ but for a low priced book in remarkably firm condition.”

If either of the Pembroke dedication copies of the First Folio is found, it is my hope that neither will be ragged or rotten.

A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles
.

—Shakespeare’s
The Winter’s Tale

Just as a copy of every book published in the United States must be deposited with the Library of Congress, or a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom must be deposited with the British Library, in Renaissance England, a copy of a newly published work had to be deposited at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The deposit copy of the First Folio was dutifully forwarded in sheets to the Bodleian Library
upon the publication of the volume late in 1623. The loose sheets were sent to William Wildgoose, an Oxford binder, to be bound. On its return to the library, the book was, according to custom for valuable books, chained to a shelf.