Buffalo's connection to the Bard
The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library is showing off its copy of the first folio of Shakespeare plays, published nearly four centuries ago, to salute the recent recovery in Washington, D.C. of a copy stolen 10 years ago from a British university.
Buffalo's pristine, 902-page compilation was acquired in the early 20th century by Col. Charles Clifton, head of the Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co., in a swap with Henry Clay Folger, an oil tycoon and collector who went on to found Washington's Folger Shakespeare Library, where the purloined copy recently turned up.
Police in Durham, England, questioned a man who may be the same one who asked Folger library experts to evaluate the folio. They instead contacted the FBI and the book, taken from Durham University in 1998, was seized. It's said to be worth $2.5 million.
Librarian Elaine A. Barone said Buffalo's folio, which Clifton donated to the library in 1924, is one of only 228 still in existence. Each is "a very significant piece of literature" because it includes 16 Shakespeare plays that had not previously been published, she said.
Are you curious enough to visit the Rare Books Room in the Central Library? Let us know.
--Tom Buckham
