A RARE first edition of Shakespeares complete plays is expected to sell for more than £3.5m at auction this week but could end up leaving Britain.

The compendium of 36 plays is being sold at Sothebys by Dr Williamss Library in central London to raise funds to secure its future.

Few potential buyers in Britain are likely to be able to afford the book, printed in 1623 and one of the most complete copies of the first folio still in existence. Sothebys, the auctioneer, expects it to sell for between £3.5m and £5m.

“The frontrunners are the Japanese,” said Jonathan Bate, professor of Shakespeare studies at Warwick University. “Maybe an institution there or possibly an individual. But there’s really nobody who can afford it in Britain.”

Although 750 copies of the folio were originally printed in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, only about 220 survive and many of them are incomplete.

The last comparable first folio was sold by Christies in New York in 2001 for a hammer price of $5.6m, about £3m at current exchange rates.

Posted: 07|9|06 at 8:22 am. Filed under: UK News.