The earliest collected edition of Shakespeare’s works is being sold at aucion and is expected to sell for between £2.5m and £3.5 million. “What makes a book so valuable? And why would even a multi-millionaire be prepared to pay such a sum? However ludicrous the prices fetched by paintings, you can see why a wealthy person or institution would be willing to stump up. There it is on the wall: beautiful, unique, luminous. But the First Folio is not aesthetically delectable. The print quality is not wonderful and there are many printing errors. It contains an artwork, the Martin Droeshout engraving that is our only certain likeness of the bard, but it is a cack-handed portraiture. And the book is not unique. It is not even rare.”