A Blast From The Past : Eldras's Ebay Auction Of His Folio Copy Of William Shakespeare's Pericles

Snippet From The Camden New Journal 2004

Is he making a folio out of me?

COMPUTER buffs of my acquaintance told me this week of intriguing goings-on on the internet auction site eBay.
There an eccentric, 90 page stream of consciousness from a seller based in London NW3 and calling himself Eldras invited bids for “the greatest 21st century rare book stampede, a first folio appearance of Pericles by Mr William Shakespeare”.
The seller, who is apparently well known to eBay watchers and bibliophiles, claimed other very rare early copies of the 1609 romance had been destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666.

He set just a one penny reserve, but added: “I’m looking for £100,000 for this.”
Naturally, I made enquiries. One Hampstead resident claimed to have seen the merchandise. He described what appeared to be 20 authentic pages of extracts from the play, between more modern covers.



I managed to track down a phone number purporting to belong to Eldras, but despite leaving several messages, my calls were not returned.
Then the trail went cold.

I heard rumours Eldras had inherited the folio from his book-dealer father and that he had sold it on Saturday for £250,000.

Even more beguiling was the tale that he is to be found regularly, late on Tuesday nights, in the internet café in McDonald’s burger joint on Finchley Road.
Whatever the truth of the matter, Hampstead would clearly be a much duller place without Eldras’s contribution, to say nothing of cyberspace.