In 1889 F. Perkins’s copy, with title and verses mounted, sold for £415; and Halliwell Phillipps’s poor copy, with portrait, verses, preliminary and last leaf in facsimile, for £95.
W. H. Crawford’s imperfect copy, with title, verses, prefatory matter, and “Cymbeline” reprinted in facsimile, sold in 1891 for £16, 10s.
In this same year Brayton Ives’s copy, perfect, but rather short, was sold in New York for 4200 dollars (£840).
Addington’s copy, with verses inlaid, in good condition, but short (12⅝ by 8¼), fetched £280.
A copy, with title in facsimile, leaf containing verses, last leaf and a few others mended in the margin, was sold in a sale of Early English Poetry (Sotheby, 1892) for £208.
Birket Foster’s copy sold in 1894 for £255; and Mr. Toovey’s, with title and verses in facsimile, for £169.
SECOND FOLIO, 1632.
The most interesting copy of the second folio is in the King’s Library. It belonged to Dr. Mead, at whose sale it was bought by Askew for £2, 12s. 6d. At Askew’s sale it was bought by Steevens for £5, 10s., an amount which he styled enormous. At Steevens’s sale this copy was bought for George III. for eighteen guineas. It formerly belonged to Charles I., who wrote in it, “Dum spiro spero, C.R.” The King presented it the night before his execution to Sir Thomas Herbert, who had written, “Ex dono serenissimi Regis Car. Servo suo Humiliss. T. Herbert.” Steevens mistook the identity of this Herbert, and wrote, “Sir Thomas Herbert was Master of the Revels to King Charles the First.” George III. wrote beneath Steevens’s note, “This is a mistake, he (Sir Thomas Herbert) having been Groom of the Bed-Chamber to King Charles I., but Sir Henry Herbert was Master of the Revels.”
Dibdin made the same mistake with respect to this price that he did with respect to the price of the Grenville first folio. He wrote, “£18, 18s.—the largest sum ever given, or likely to be given, for the book.” Now in 1895, at the Earl of Orford’s sale, the largest and finest copy known of the second folio, in the original calf binding, sold for the enormous sum of £540. This is out of all proportion to the price of the first folio, and a ridiculous amount to pay for a volume of little interest by itself, and only of value as one of the four original editions.