Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio)

London 1623 only — there is no rival, foreign or original-language first, and the census note is correct that precedence is not in question. What is in question for any copy presented as a First Folio is whether it is a First Folio at all. The later folios are separate editions, not printings: Second Folio, 1632; Third Folio, 1663, with a second issue of 1664 adding seven plays — Pericles (the only one now accepted as Shakespeare's), The London Prodigal, Thomas Lord Cromwell, Sir John Oldcastle, The Puritan, A Yorkshire Tragedy and Locrine; Fourth Folio, 1685 (R. Bentley, E. Brewster, R. Chiswell and H. Herringman). The Third Folio is the scarcest of the four, unsold stock having reportedly burned in the Great Fire of 1666. Genuine First Folios are census-tracked individually copy by copy; a previously unrecorded copy is a significant scholarly event, not a routine find.