← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

Folger Finds Filched First Folio

From Times Online:

A book dealer from Co Durham has denied theft of a Shakespeare First Folio stolen from Durham University in 1998. Raymond Scott, 53, claims that he found the 1623 book — worth up to £15 million and one of only 228 copies known — in a nightclub in Havana, Cuba.

Mr Scott, of Manor Grange, Wingate, County Durham, claimed he came across the book while visiting his fiancée Heidy Rios, a 21-year-old dancer at Havana’s Tropicana Club.

He was arrested after taking the book to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC to have it “verified”, and staff became concerned that it was the same First Folio stolen from Durham University Library in 1998.

The book, which is believed to be worth up to £15 million, has been described as one of the most important printed works in the English language…

Way to go, Folger….

I’d love to have been there to see the whole thing unfold…

Imagine the incredulous face of the librarian as it slowly dawns on her… The way she glances up at Scott and then gingerly walks out of the room with the thing, her fingers trembling. Mr Scott would you mind waiting here a moment

Then, with her whole body shaking, alerting her colleagues who confirm its authenticity… Then rapid whispering: Whadda we do?… Whadda we do?… Call the FBI, dammit… Then giving the guy tea (Folger has a high tea) and chatting him up while the FBI gets there…

Margaret Soltan, February 26, 2010 6:35PM
Posted in: kind of a little weird

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=21661

13 Responses to “Folger Finds Filched First Folio”

  1. Brian Says:

    I’d love to have been there too, but why imagine the librarian “trembling” and “shaking”? Why not “gleeful” and “vengeful” instead?–regardless of whether it was “her” or “him,” since the Times story does not mention the librarians’ gender(s).

  2. theprofessor Says:

    You need to give the guy an A for creativity, though.

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    What? You don’t think it’s plausible that he picked it up in a cheap bar in Havana???

  4. Dave Stone Says:

    I suggested “Let’s hide the banana,”
    To my club-dancing girl from Havana.
    But on the way to coition
    A Shakespeare edition
    Appeared in our beach-side cabana.

  5. Margaret Soltan Says:

    LOL, Dave. Coition/edition.

  6. Dave Stone Says:

    Try as I might, I just couldn’t find a rhyme for folio, quarto, or octavo.

  7. Townsend Harris Says:

    He’s 53? With an impoverished girlfriend and a purloined book? Men my age can be hopeless.

  8. Andrew Says:

    There’s hopeless, and then there’s hopeful in a hopeless sort of way.
    The Daily News provides pics:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1036564/November-wedding-insists-fiancee-dealer-accused-manuscript-theft.html

  9. Mr Punch Says:

    Isn’t this a case of acting out movie/TV tropes? The guy thinks, “Okay, I’m an international book thief, I ought to have a girlfriend who dances in a nightclub in Havana.”

  10. Margaret Soltan Says:

    LOL, Mr Punch.

  11. Tom Says:

    More classic work from Dave Stone! Dave, I hope you’re saving these. History demands it.

  12. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Dave: For folio, there’s Malvolio….

  13. University Diaries » UPDATE: Ricky Ricardo III Says:

    […] in Cuba visiting his girlfriend, a dancer at Havana’s Tropicana Club, when his eye fell upon a 1623 Shakespeare First Folio just sitting there at the bar. O brave new world, That has such manuscripts […]

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories