SHORT TAKES : Bard’s Plays Go for $2 Million

A set of the first four successive editions of Shakespeare’s collected plays was sold Thursday for $2 million, a record for what are known as the “Four Folios,” Sotheby’s said.

Apart from an unfinished attempt in 1619 to publish a collected issue of Shakespeare’s plays, the Folios were the only collected editions printed in the 17th Century, according to the auction catalogue.

“I never paid $2 million for anything before,” said James Cummins, a Manhattan dealer who bought the Folios for a customer he would identify only as a private American collector. “I’m a little nervous but excited.”

Cummins said he and his customer had been looking for at least the first Folio for about five years.

“The first Folio is the first collected works of Shakespeare,” he explained. “The four together are exceedingly desirable, but the first Folio is the one that you’re really paying a premium to get because it’s almost impossible to find a fine copy and this is a very, very nice copy indeed.”