including those belonging to the British and Bodleian libraries, and a tattered copy recently discovered in France. Some of the most precious surviving documents will be gathered together in an exhibition at Somerset House in London, jointly organized by the National Archives and King’s College London, including four of his six known signatures, which are all slightly different. The exhibition, By Me, William Shakespeare, will include his will, the court papers relating to the audacious move when Shakespeare and his fellow actors dismantled a theatre on the north side of the Thames and rebuilt it as the Globe on the South Bank, and accounts showing payments from the royal treasury for Boxing Day performances for James I and Queen Anne. The outgoing Globe director, Dominic Dromgoole, recently jokily claimed Shakespeare as a true Londoner – albeit conceding “some spurious claim” by Stratford-upon-Avon. Stratford, however, will be insisting that the town made and educated Shakespeare. His old school room is being restored with a £1.4m Heritage Lottery grant and will open as a permanent visitor attraction. Shakespeare bought the splendid New Place, the second best house in the town, where he died, according to literary legend, on St George’s Day, 23 April, the same day as his birth. “You don’t buy a house like New Place and not live there,” Paul Edmondson said.