AQS on a small slip, signed "Richard Wagner." Wagner pens the iconic line from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, "To be, or not to be." Affixed to a piece of scrapbook paper and in very good condition, with some creasing, soiling, and small areas of surface paper loss; overall in very good to fine condition. 4 x 2.25 inches (10 x 5.8 cm), mounted to 4.5 x 2.75 inches (11.3 x 7 cm).

Wagner had a lifelong affinity for the works of Shakespeare, beginning as a young man when, he recalled, he dreamt of meeting the Bard: "I dreamt that Shakespeare was alive, and that I met him and spoke to him, actually, in the flesh; the impression this dream left on me was indelible..." Wagner's first major work, Leubald (written in 1827–28 while he was at school), was a six-hour play whose plot is clearly directly inspired by Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear, Henry IV Part One and Richard III; one of his first operas, Das Liebesverbot, was a lighter reworking of Measure for Measure. As many of his acquaintances recall, Wagner was also fond of reading the works of Shakespeare aloud, especially while in Bayreuth.