Wolfson has pledged his collection of historic Shakespeare works, including a rare First Folio of the bard's plays, to the Globe Theatre in London so it will remain intact after his death, the theatre said on Friday.

Although Wolfson's collection has never been valued, some of the individual texts could be worth 1 million pounds (S$2.3 million), the Globe said.

'What happens to most collections, unfortunately, is that they get broken up,' Wolfson said. 'Having witnessed the breakup of many collections, I consider myself fortunate to have found a place as appropriate for my books as Shakespeare's Globe.'

Wolfson, who declines to disclose his age, has written several plays including The Lives of Bosie, about Oscar Wilde's lover, for which he won a Barrymore Award for theatre excellence.

The Globe Theatre was built in 1997 on the south bank of the River Thames as a recreation of the Elizabethan original. It has begun a fundraising campaign to build a new library to house Wolfson's rare books, said Chief Executive Peter Kyle.

Wolfson has been interested in donating to the Globe for a long time, writing the theatre more than a decade ago to ask, 'Who is your librarian?'

Included in his collection is a folio of 18 of Shakespeare's plays that was published in the early 17th century, shortly after the bard's death.

Approximately 750 copies of the folio were printed in 1623. None of the plays - including As You Like It, Twelfth Night and Macbeth - had been published before. Some 228 copies of the First Folio are known to have survived into the 1990s.

Wolfson's collection also includes works by other 16th, 17th and 18th century playwrights and texts thought to have influenced Shakespeare. -- AP