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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.2435  Monday, 29 December 2003

From:           Al Magary <al@magary.com>
Date:           Wednesday, 24 Dec 2003 15:56:20 -0800
Subject:        "Pericles manuscript"?

This is either something or nothing. Google News alerts tipped me to an
article in, hmm, the Hindustan Times, quoting London's Daily Mail, that
a manuscript of Pericles was at auction on eBay and bidding had reached
5 million pounds, with closing on Thursday, Dec. 25, 6:53 pm (London
time). The article is below. However, I have searched ebay.com and
ebay.co.uk and find no such item on sale or just sold. Google News
produces no other clips on this, the Daily Mail website is still being
constructed, and Google finds nothing on a collector in Hampstead named
John Ellis. Anyone know anything about this?

Cheers,
Al Magary

Bard's manuscript proves big draw in cyberspace bidding
Vijay Dutt
London, December 24
Hindustan Times, December 24, updated 19:06 IST

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_507000,00050003.htm

In a bizarre marriage of the ancient and the IT modernity, a
340-year-old edition of William Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre
is soon to be sold on the internet site eBay. The bidding has already
touched £5 million, according to The Mail.

A priceless Shakespeare manuscript would have normally attracted some
major auction house, but the dictates of modern times have overtaken
such "antiquated" methods of sale.

The offer on the internet site has been described as equivalent to car
boot sale in cyberspace. eBay is now a popular site for computer users
to clear out unwanted items and is also used as a trading centre by
books and CD collectors.

The bound, yellowing work of 20 pages is owned by a British collector
who will close the bidding at 6:53 pm on Thursday. The manuscript formed
one of seven plays in the third folio of Shakespeare's work which was
produced in 1663/1664.

The manuscript was one of only a few copies that survived the great fire
of London at a printing warehouse in 1666. The report reveals that the
work has been the subject of a bidding war involving collectors,
libraries and universities on the eBay site.

Until Tuesday night 87 bids had been received from across the world, the
highest being £4,800,300 from an American collector. Bidding got so
frenzied at one stage that part of the site crashed.

Pericles tells of a man shipwrecked with is daughter and was published
in 1608. The present seller John Ellis from Hampstead in north-west
London, told The Mail that he purchased the manuscript from an
antiquarian house in the US. He revealed that he had received a letter
from Oxford University as well, expressing an interest in buying the
manuscript. He is pleasantly amazed that bidding has touched £5 million.
He initially expected about £200,000.

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Hardy M. Cook, editor@shaksper.net
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