The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.2450  Wednesday, 31 December 2003

From:           Thomas Larque <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Tuesday, 30 Dec 2003 13:43:02 -0000
Subject: 14.2445 "Pericles manuscript"?
Comment:        Re: SHK 14.2445 "Pericles manuscript"?

 >> I imagine it might have been a holiday prank...i.e., someone sending out
 >> a false news item and seeing how far it got. Either that or the
 >> notorious New York Times fiction-journalist Jayson Blair got a new job
 >> and a new pseudonym, Vijay Dutt.

The Sun Newspaper in England apparently printed their own version of the
story, and it was available on their website (and is currently still
there at http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003591412,00.html).  I'm
not sure whether they originated it.  Perhaps they copied it from the
Indian Newspaper.  I put a link to the story up on the British
Shakespeare Association website, but said that it was "Rather
suspicious..." and that I could not find the auction on EBay (where the
highest bid for an item seemed to be in tens of thousands of dollars,
not millions of pounds).  Looking back the comment, quoted in the
Sunday, "Five million is unbelievable" from the supposed owner of the
text was probably a cheeky dig at those who would swallow the story.

Doing a brief search of the web, I see that a First Folio was apparently
being sold at Christies in 2000 with an estimate of      

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