📜 Stat of the Day: To Bid, Or Not To Bid

The “most significant publication in the history of English literature” will soon be up for grabs—all it takes is several million dollars and the will to outbid other interested parties.

A set of the first four printed editions of William Shakespeare’s plays—the First through Fourth Folios—goes up for auction next month for the first time since 1989, Sotheby’s announced on Wednesday (Shakespeare’s 461st birthday).

• The First Folio is a collection of 36 of Shakespeare’s greatest works, published together shortly after his death in 1616. Without the Folio, plays like Macbeth, The Tempest, and Julius Caesar may have been lost forever, scholars say.
• The other three Folios, which are reprints of the original, were published later in the 17th century following the success of the first.

Not many collectors have them in their port-folio: Only 235 of the original 750 First Folio copies are known to still exist—and the Third Folio is even rarer, at 150 copies.

Looking ahead…The Folio set goes up for auction at Sotheby’s on May 23. It’s expected to fetch up to $6 million.

🤔 Did You Know? Meteorologists around the world all launch weather balloons at the same time in order to gather accurate weather forecasts; it occurs twice per day—12 pm and 12 am GMT—every day of the year.

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