Notebook written by unknown 17th-century William Shakespeare scholar comes to light leaving Antiques Roadshow expert 'trembling'

A seventeenth century scratch pad containing the jottings of maybe the world's first Shakespeare researcher has left specialists "trembling" in reckoning of what it might contain.

Entitled Shakespeare: Comedies and Tragedies, it was found among the gathering of eighteenth Century curator John Loveday of Caversham by a relative.

Matthew Haley, head of books and original copies at Bonhams, evaluated the thing for Antiques Roadshow, taped at Caversham Park, Berkshire.

He said it was probably going to get more than £30,000 at closeout, and conceded that it's "colossal academic esteem" had abandoned him "trembling" as he held it at.

He stated: "It's a little original copy, a small little scratch pad about the span of a matchbox, and it's in a seventeenth century hand.

"We don't know who the individual who composed it is, yet clearly if it's a seventeenth century hand they were either coming to Shakespeare's plays when they were being performed and taking notes, or they were understanding one of the initial four printed releases of Shakespeare, which is truly astonishing.

"Inquisitively, it does exclude the histories, and one could theorize as to why that may be.

"To the extent I could see the writer was recording quotes, entries or expressions. that he preferred.

"I saw a quote from Twelfth Night, however I would envision that it covers a significant extensive number of the plays.

"On the off chance that he was working from the printed messages then by the mid-seventeenth century the greater part of Shakespeare's plays were thought about, in spite of the fact that the books were not imprinted in immense amounts."

"Clearly there weren't that many individuals who were educated at the time and there weren't that many individuals who might have had entry to the printed versions of Shakespeare. It's such a captivating puzzle.

"English writing as a subject didn't come up until around 1900. No one was considering writing in that way, and especially not plays. Exposition and verse were viewed as marginally more insightful or highbrow.

"No one began to alter Shakespeare's works in a scholarly way or looking at writings until the eighteenth century. Shakespeare was known as the national dramatist and the national artist, he'd obtained some kind of legendary status by that point, yet individuals weren't taking a gander at him in a scholastic, investigative way. In any case, possibly this note-taker was.

Mr Haley said the record, which is being translated, may give confirm that not the greater part of Shakespeare's plays were composed by the Bard himself completely, while the lines cited my contrast from those being used today.

"I'm certain that close investigation of it would recognize cites from some plays that are not really all Shakespeare.

"It may be that he cites something that shows up in the 1632 second folio that doesn't show up in the 1623 first".