A 400-year-old volume of Shakespeare stolen in England a decade ago and valued at 15 million pounds (USD 30 million) has been recovered after a man walked into a library in Washington and asked to have it authenticated.Police in Durham, northeast England, said on Friday they had arrested a 51-year-old man over the theft of the First Folio edition of 1623, which scholars consider one of the most important printed books in the English language.
It was among seven centuries-old books and manuscripts stolen in December 1998 from a display case at the Durham University library in northeast England.
The university said at the time it would be virtually impossible to sell the books to legitimate buyers, and for almost a decade police found no trace of them.
The mystery began to unravel two weeks ago when a man brought the First Folio to Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, and asked to have it verified as genuine.
Police said the man claimed to be an international businessman who had bought the volume in Cuba.
Staff at the library asked to keep the book while they did research, and discovered it was stolen.
They told the FBI, which launched an international search for the man.
Police said the man was arrested on Thursday at an address in the English town of Washington, near Durham.
He was being questioned on Friday while detectives searched his home.
The book remains at the Folger Library, one of the world's leading centres of Shakespearean research.
Durham Police said authorities felt would be safer there than in "an FBI warehouse next to piles of cocaine and cannabis."
Plans were being made to bring the book back to Durham.
