Romance of words

If you go

Shakespeare to Sherlock: Treasures of the British Library

9 am-5 pm, Tuesday to Sunday, through June 21. National Museum of Classic Books, National Library of China, Haidian district, Beijing. 010-8854-4747.

Of characters, notes and names

Though hundreds of years have passed, writers' early manuscripts breathe life into literary classics even as they bear witness to the passage of time. Some of the highlights of the ongoing exhibition Shakespeare to Sherlock: Treasures of the British Library :

Don Juan

George Gordon Byron

1822

The limping poet successfully turns Don Juan from a seducer to someone who falls in love in his 16,000-line, unfinished poem. "He turns the story (original play plot) upside-down and he surprises us," says Alexandra Ault, curator of the exhibition.

Byron's manuscripts are on different-sized sheets of paper, and we can actually see him making changes and crossing out lines. The paper shows traces of being folded, indicating how Byron carried them with him and wrote using what was available to him.

"The folds reveal the artistic process of the poet," says Ault.