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…
February 26th, 2010 at 10:39PM
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).
February 27th, 2010 at 8:36AM
You need to give the guy an A for creativity, though.
February 27th, 2010 at 8:51AM
What? You don’t think it’s plausible that he picked it up in a cheap bar in Havana???
February 27th, 2010 at 9:24AM
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.
February 27th, 2010 at 9:57AM
LOL, Dave. Coition/edition.
February 27th, 2010 at 11:19AM
Try as I might, I just couldn’t find a rhyme for folio, quarto, or octavo.
February 27th, 2010 at 11:38AM
He’s 53? With an impoverished girlfriend and a purloined book? Men my age can be hopeless.
February 27th, 2010 at 11:54AM
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
February 27th, 2010 at 1:04PM
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.”
February 27th, 2010 at 1:43PM
LOL, Mr Punch.
February 27th, 2010 at 3:50PM
More classic work from Dave Stone! Dave, I hope you’re saving these. History demands it.
February 28th, 2010 at 4:31PM
Dave: For folio, there’s Malvolio….
June 29th, 2010 at 10:13AM
[…] 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 […]