Man Accidentally Finds Rare Manuscript of Shakespeare’s Sonnet Hidden in a Poetry Collection of a Library Literary history held the reputation of never being tarnished by the passage of time as intellectual history could not be destroyed.

An Oxford researcher found a rare, handwritten variation of one of Shakespeare’s most famous love poems. About 400 years ago, its meaning might have been very different.

Dr. Leah Veronese from Oxford University's English Faculty has unearthed a rare manuscript copy of Shakespeare's famous Sonnet 116 tucked away in a 17th-century poetry collection. This treasure was found among the papers of Elias Ashmole (1617–1692),

The recently discovered copy of Sonnet 116 "reads as a political love song" during England's Civil Wars, according to the professor who found it.