Württemberg State Library

This copy arrived at the Württembergische Landesbibliothek when Dr Alex Springer, owner of the newspapers Die Welt and Das Bild, acquired it for the library in 1960. Its earliest known owner was Frederick Perkins, part owner of the brewery of Barclay Perkins & Co. He and his brother, Henry Perkins, were tutored by Samuel Parr. The two brothers’ passion was collecting rare books. A competition between the two started and, although they both acquired copies of all four Folios, Frederick did not own a Gutenberg Bible, whereas his bother owned two copies. Perkins’s library was sold in 1889 and bought on behalf of William Law by Quaritch. The copy then went to his nephew, Sir Alfred Joseph Law. In 1928, the copy was in the hands of Martin Bodmer, the Swiss collector, who used this copy as payment for Rosenbach’s Shakespeare Collection, which included the First Folio now held at the Bodmer Foundation.