Julia Moir/The British Library

A little known piece of the Shakespearean workship, or at least a manuscript that Shakespeare never saw, is to be auctioned tomorrow in London.

The volume is called “A Love Story: The First Folio”, which, since it is in Shakespeare’s hand, is generally seen as the first work Shakespeare produced and is currently in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It features a preface written by Shakespeare; and is thought to have been bound and sent off to the printer in 1523.

The folio was used in William Shakespeare’s first edition of “Hamlet”.

However, it is not known whether Shakespeare ever saw it. It is now in the British Museum, although it has been described as a “strange fragment”.

The “discovery” of the folio comes amid speculation that Mr Shakespeare may have lost his will when his will was executed.

The will was discovered last year when an archive staff member found one of the many handwritten words on paper tucked underneath a bed sheet which included an inscription: “I have left a folio of a Poet’s First Folio”.

The find triggered hopes that the playwright had taken more than 10,000 manuscript verses with him when he died.

‘Caveats’

Bidding has reached £6,000, with the buyer expected to be an anonymous Dutch collector paying £35,000 for the entire volume. It is expected to be sold by Christie’s in London tomorrow.

“We are all aware of other parts of Shakespeare’s early career that have come to light, but this folio offers us more information on the manuscript’s origin and authorship,” says Mr Moore. “It’s an interesting example of Shakespeare’s early prose composition.”

He says that it is particularly interesting that the work was likely to be signed rather than stamped as it would have been sent from the printer.

“It’s a fascinating piece of evidence,” he says. “If it was put together and sent back to the printer before it was signed, they could have left themselves the possibility of putting in a different signature. It helps to fill in a question that’s often discussed in relation to the veracity of copies of Shakespeare’s works of art – is he really the first author of the work?”

“This work will also be interesting to scholars that follow the