LONDON, July 11 (Xinhua) -- A 400-year-old collection of works by William Shakespeare stolen 10 years ago has been recovered, police in Durham, northeast England, said Friday.

    The recovered volume, the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's works, dates back to 1623 and is considered by scholars as of the most important printed books in the English language. It is said to be valued at some 30 million U.S. dollars.

    The First Folio edition, together with six other centuries-old books and manuscripts, was stolen in December 1998 from a display case at the Durham University library.

    No trace of the lost works could be found during the past decade till last month, when a man brought the First Folio to Folger Shakespeare Library in the U.S. capital of Washington and asked to have it verified as genuine.

    The man claimed to be an international businessman who had bought the volume in Cuba.

    Investigators later confirmed that it was the one stolen in 1998 and the clues had led to the a 51-year-old man in the Englishtown of Washington, near Durham, on Thursday.

    The suspect was being questioned Friday as detectives searched his home.

    The First Folio was published seven years after Shakespeare's death and was the first collected edition of his plays.

    Some 750 copies were printed but only about 40 complete copies are known to exist.