At The London Library
Book now for my tours of Spitalfields in August, September & October
Like an old book jammed into a crowded bookcase, the London Library sits wedged in the corner of St James’ Sq. Years ago, I had the privilege of a subsidised membership for a spell, and I loved to come here and browse the labyrinth of shelves containing over a million volumes. Thus it was a sentimental pilgrimage to return for a visit, deliver copies of my own books for their collection, and take a tour around the refurbished premises.
Before I joined the London Library, I had been defeated by the catalogues of the great libraries, with their obscure numerical systems and form-filling requirements just so that you might return to consult the books you wanted now, on another day. At the London Library, there is none of this soul-destroying rigmarole and you are free to explore the collection by wandering among the miles of bookshelves, engendering unexpected discoveries and facilitating the pursuit of whims that would be impossible in libraries where the stack is closed to readers.
Once you walk through the narrow entrance, the building widens out with staircases leading off in different directions. On the first floor at the front is the magnificent nineteenth-century reading room with leather armchairs arranged around the fire. I cannot have been the first writer to shame myself by coming here in the winter months to escape a cold house and take advantage of the central heating, but then fallen into a doze instead of reading.
Beyond the reading room, lies the stack of books that is the true wonder of this library. Towering shelves rise through three or four storeys with gantries of translucent glass and metal grilles which permit access for readers. Wandering in pursuit of a particular volume, you may come to yourself in the midst of this structure and be overcome with vertigo, gazing down through the floors below or peering up at the stack above.
It is a physical experience that has its intellectual counterpart when you take a volume from the shelf and open it – standing there in the depths of the building – and begin to realise how many books there are that you will not ever read, even if you spent the rest of yours days in there. You recognise the limitless depth of the intellectual literary universe. This is one of those places of which it may truly be said that you can go in and never come out again in this life. How fortunate then that the London Library permits its readers to borrow a generous number of books and keep them for months on end, as long as no-one else wants them.
When I first came to the London Library, I was quite early in my quest for the subjects that would engage my working life as writer and, in many ways, this was a fruitful place to search and tap the reserves of past literary endeavour. I found it inspiring, after first discovering classic pieces of writing through their paperback reprints, to encounter those same works in their early editions upon the shelves here and it brought those writers closer to see their books as they saw them. In my mind, I equated the darkness of the stacks with a mine where I searched, delving into the collective imagination. Isolated from daylight, to me it was a timeless netherworld where the spirits of past authors lingered, waiting to be sought out.
At the beginning of my life as a writer, I used to read far more than I wrote but – as the years passed – the balance has shifted and now I am so busy producing my stories every day that I hardly have any time left to read anymore. With this thought in mind, I left the London Library and did not envy the bookworms. I walked out through the crowded streets of Piccadilly, alive with the drama of human existence in the afternoon sunlight, and I realised that the city is my library of infinite curiosity now and everyone I meet is a book – even if, in my modest interviews, I commonly only get as far as the first chapter.
The reading room
Librarians of 1935
Archive photographs courtesy of London Library
The London Library , 14 St James’s Sq, SW1Y 4LG
I joined the London Library more than 40 years ago, when I was in my early 30s and just embarking on my writing career. As I was shown round on my first visit, I suspected that I was probably the youngest person there by about 30 years! I’ve been a member ever since, though now it’s as a cheaper ‘remote’ subscription, with books posted to me and complete access to their online resources, because I live outside London and don’t visit very often. I do miss those wonderful stacks, the labyrinthine layers of book upon book, the smell of old leather and worn pages, the joy of coming across something very useful that you didn’t even know existed, and then taking your haul to the Reading Room and perusing them at leisure before deciding which to borrow. I do like their embracing of modern technology – yes, those huge old red leather volumes of catalogues were splendid, but not exactly user-friendly! And the shelving arrangements take a bit of getting used to – the ‘Science’ section seems to be a catch-all for anything that doesn’t fit in anywhere else. Slavery? Gardening? Women? Really? It’s confusing, idiosyncratic, in some respects hopelessly old-fashioned. But over my writing life it’s been one of the most valuable resources for research, and the subscription has saved me a fortune in books I don’t need to buy.
The London Library is a marvel and I have been a member on and off over the years. Although my principal interest is art, the library is a treasure trove of highways and byways and most rewarding if you have the time and inclination to wander off the beaten track!
Yes, the libraries! Those were the days when people went into them to expand their knowledge. Slipcases and microfilms were the media you had to move around. Today, it all goes even further: Digital and AI are available.
One of the best articles from the GA! I don’t need to say anything else: I recognise everything exactly as described here!
Love & Peace
ACHIM
I would feel privileged if I had access to this, what a beautiful place to browse and be able to read in.
Before I moved to London in 1984, whilst still living in Scotland I used to love going to my local library for peace and quiet, especially during lengthy period of unemployment. I just loved the old fashioned huge oak bookshelves and the smell of the books; the huge oak tables and chairs in the reading room. After I moved back to Scotland in 2004 I was dismayed to find a modernised interior with white flatpack bookshelves and a reading room full of modular furniture. The council eventually closed it and it’s now luxury flats!
Now I’m in Switzerland, the public library system where I am is run by a charity and membership is not free. We often take things like libraries for granted in Britain.
I often suspected that the Carnegies, the Skaifes, the Whitneys, and the Fricks “atoned” to the citizens of Pittsburgh by endowing us with the BEST libraires, museums, conservatories, and more. Their perceived thanks to us, in exchange for the harsh labor conditions of our blue-collar region. Just a theory. Our local library, started in 1899 (one of the original Carnegie Libraries) was a safe haven and I still have vivid memories of “sitting in the stacks” on a summer day; letting my eyes slide over the endless volumes. Crouched down on one of the round stools, I came across a book that would stay with me for a lifetime — “The Great Gatsby”. That year, I eagerly read everything by or about Fitzgerald. My interest in him eventually widened to include so many touchstones of that era — Gerald and Sara Murphy, the Ballet Russes, Zelda and her paper dolls, European seasides and Manhattan speakeasies. And although in adulthood I eventually invested in my own collection of books on all these topics, my Magic Carpet Ride began in my local library.
Thank you for taking us along to the London Library, with words
and pictures. Oh goodness, miles of books!? How I long to sit at one of those little wooden
tables, and look through a stack of discoveries.
Oh My! It is just as well that they require a membership, else I would never have left while on my visit to London. Just look at the books- so enticing. That grilled walkway high up in the stacks would bother me a bit but the translucent ones really seem scary for some reason. I am sure after
pulling the first book, I would forget all about how high up I was standing! Thank you so much for this small glimpse of a library I never knew existed.
Your article was recently passed to me by a friend. London Library! What memories! I was a junior librarian there around 1970. I studied for my A-levels during my lunch hours in that immaculate Reading Room (in those days with a coal fire!). I finally ended up as a university lecturer with a PhD, I think thanks largely to my beginnings at that establishment. Long may it live.