Tiny notebook by ‘first Shakespeare geek’ to go on show in Stratford

Crammed with minuscule writing, manuscript is seen as earliest ‘proper reader’s response’ to first folio

In 2017, an expert on BBC One’s Antiques Roadshow was excited by a minuscule 17th-century notebook that bore the name of Shakespeare, but the writing was so tiny it was difficult to read.

Since then, it has been transcribed and studied by leading scholars and its anonymous author has emerged as what is thought to have been the playwright’s first obsessive fan.