Estimated number of extant copies.
It is difficult to estimate how many copies survive of the First Folio, which is intrinsically the most valuable volume in the whole range of English literature, and extrinsically is only exceeded in value by
some half-dozen volumes of far earlier date and of exceptional typographical interest. It seems that about 140 copies have been traced within the past century. Of these fewer than twenty are in a perfect state, that is, with the portrait printed (not inlaid) on the title-page, and the flyleaf facing it, with all the pages succeeding it, intact and uninjured. (The flyleaf contains Ben Jonson’s verses attesting the truthfulness of the portrait.) Excellent copies in this enviable state are in the Grenville Library at the British Museum, and in the libraries of the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of Crawford, the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and Mr. A. H. Huth. Of these probably the finest and cleanest is the ‘Daniel’ copy belonging to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. It measures 13 inches by 8¼, and was purchased by its present owner for £716 2s. at the sale of George Daniel’s library in 1864. Some twenty more copies are defective in the preliminary pages, but are unimpaired in other respects. There remain about a hundred copies which have sustained serious damage at various points.