Shakespeare's First Folio comes to Sotheby’s Hong Kong to mark 400th anniversary

Eton College and Heywood Hill are to provide the residents of Hong Kong a unique opportunity to see one of the greatest literary artifacts in the English-speaking world this year, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.[Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Eton College, the famous British public school, has a spectacular library containing many rare books and manuscripts dating back to the 9th Century. One of the treasures of their collection is a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio. The First Folio is the book that, in many ways, gave us Shakespeare. Seven years after Shakespeare's death, two of his friends, Henry Condell and John Heminge, published this collected edition of his plays, half of which had never been printed before.

The small exhibition at Sotheby's will include the First Folio alongside pictures, photographs and three Shakespeare Quartos, highlighting a comedy, tragedy and historical play.