As The London Library prepares to celebrate its 180th anniversary this weekend, it reveals for the first time the extensive borrowing records of Charles Darwin, who was one of the Library’s earliest members, joining within a few weeks of the Library opening on 3rd May 1841.
In the Library’s archive are a selection of handwritten Issue Books from the 1840s and 1850s, only a few of which have survived to provide a partial record of early members’ borrowing activities. In amongst them are records for Charles Darwin, listing the books he borrowed during various periods between July 1843 and February 1846 and then during a short, undated period in the early 1850s. The Library’s recent research into these ledgers provides a remarkable insight into Charles Darwin’s reading habits during a busy period in his professional life and reveal him to be a voracious leisure reader.
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In the two year period between July 1843 and July 1845, for example, the Issue Books reveal that Charles Darwin borrowed at least 200 books from The London Library, arranging 36 separate visits to collect them. Of the 119 titles mentioned – many of them multi-volume works - the Library has at least 73 of the relevant editions still in its collection today.
The list is remarkable in its range and extent. Charles Darwin’s reading list includes:
- Lives of the Queens of England, by Agnes Strickland
- Travels in New Zealand by Ernst Dieffenbach
- Works and Essays by Montaigne
- Consuelo, Andre and Valentine by George Sand
- Austria by JB Kohl
- The Journal of a Naturalist by John Knapp
- Correspondence of William Pitt
- The History of Greece by William Mitford
- Sermons on Christian Life by Thomas Arnold
- History of the Conquest of Mexico by William Prescott
- Travels through the Alps by James Forbes
- The Bible in Spain by George Henry Borrow
- The Poetical Works of Robert Southey
- The Art of Deer Stalking by William Scrope
The period covered by the Issue Books were a hectic time for the family. Five children were born and during the 1840s Charles Darwin, often ill, produced scientific works on coral reefs and volcanic islands and a revised edition of his bestselling Voyage of the Beagle. Out of the public eye, he was also working on his ‘species theory’, outlining the main ideas in his notebooks by 1842 and writing them up as a fully researched paper which he began sharing with his closest friends in 1844, 15 years before they were eventually published as The Origin of the Species. Exhaustive research into barnacles dominated his time in the late 1840s.
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In spite of the workload, Charles Darwin and his wife Emma would often spend evenings reading together. It is highly likely that London Library books formed part of this routine, with Charles often borrowing books two or three times a month, taking out several volumes at a time.
Philip Marshall, Director of The London Library commented: “The Issue Books are a remarkable survival, and reveal a fascinating portrait of Charles Darwin as a voracious general reader fuelled by intellectual curiosity and drawing heavily on The London Library for reading material. As the Library approaches its 180th anniversary it has been very special to explore the way in which the Library’s collection informed the thinking of one of its earliest members just as it drives the ideas of our members today.”
The Library’s connection with the Darwin family is a strong one. Charles Darwin’s brother Erasmus was a founder member and introduced Charles to the Library in 1841. Five of Charles’ children joined between 1862 and 1890. Writer, Emma Darwin – Charles’s great-great granddaughter – has been a member here for several years.
The research into Charles Darwin’s reading list demonstrates the place The London Library has as one of the country’s greatest literary institutions, providing a centre of creativity, inspiration and ideas for 180 years. It has had a unique impact on the country’s literary and artistic output and continues to do so today. Thousands of the world’s greatest writers and thinkers have been associated with it, passionately supporting it and drawing heavily on its collection to produce their work. The London Library is the world’s largest independent lending library and anyone can become a member.
Read more: Charles Darwin’s reading list revealed at The London Library
Behind an elegant facade overlooking St. James's Square is a vast network of books, where since the mid-nineteenth century, seven buildings have been brought into one and a great centre of learning and ideas has been created. Now you can look inside The London Library without visiting St James's Square as we are excited to announce the release of a 3D tour of our building.
The tour showcases our main reading and writing spaces, including the beautiful Reading Room, the Writers' Room, Lightwell, Times Room and more. You'll also be able to discover some of our more hidden desks, nestled among the book shelves. From the tour you can explore numerous areas of our collection including our Art Room, Literature, the famous grilled Back Stacks housing our History, Topography, science & Miscellanous collections and others to really get a feel for what it's like inside our labyrinthine building.
We hope the tour will be of use to anyone new to the Library or considering becoming a member, providing an easy way for them to find their way around the building and discover more about what’s inside this special place.
Thank you to everyone who joined us over the weekend 1-3 May - individual event tickets or a festival pass can still be purchased to watch the recorded events in your own time up to 13 June.
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It’s our birthday! Join us to celebrate 180 glorious years of The London Library with The London Library Lit Fest.
We’re bringing together some of the brightest stars in the literary firmament for an eclectic and thought-provoking Bank Holiday weekend of online talks, workshops and performances, exploring libraries and The London Library in particular, as open places of community, discovery and refuge; where every book and every voice has a place; where ideas and creativity can form and grow.
Salman Rushdie joins us to mark 40 years since the publication of Midnight’s Children - he’ll discuss the inspiration and genesis of that book, his extraordinary body of work since, freedom of expression and the role The London Library and English PEN have played in his writing life.
Other talks with leading writers will include Sarah Waters in conversation with Hallie Rubenhold; Simon Schama discussing friendships and rivalries in art and literature; Polly Samson on her latest novel A Theatre for Dreamers and artistic communities chaired by Edward Docx; and Edmund de Waal will be in conversation with Tom Stoppard.
Discussion and panel events include Philippe Sands, Daria Santini and George Prochnik discussing Stefan Zweig in London, with readings from Zweig’s letters in partnership with Insiders Outsiders. Suzannah Lipscomb, David Nicholls, Naomi Ishiguro and Yassmin Abdel-Magied will take part in a 5x15 event. In partnership with Brighton Festival, Monique Roffey and C Pam Zhang will be discussing myth and discovery.
Bidisha will chair a discussion about publishers and publishing projects rediscovering and republishing classics by marginalised writers with Penguin’s Hannah Chukwu and Virago founder Lennie Goodings. For poetry lovers, Malika's Poetry Kitchen will host a poetry party to include performances by Inua Ellams, Kayo Chingonyi, Arji Manuelpillai, Malika Booker and Zakia Carpenter-Hall. Rebecca West was Vice President of The London Library and a founder of English PEN and played an important role in the development of both organisations; she will be remembered in a unique celebration event.
A series of workshops and interactive events will include a performance of a dramatic adaptation of A Room of One's Own by Linda Marshall-Griffiths and directed by Charlotte Westenra; creative writing workshops in partnership with Arvon; a workshop on Gender Swapped Fairytales with Karrie Fransmann and Jonathan Plackett; and a showcase of writers from The London Library’s Emerging Writers Programme in an event compered by John O’Farrell.
Tickets for most events cost £5 or you can buy a Festival Pass at the very reasonable price of £25 for all the weekend’s events.
Since it opened, 180 years ago this year, The London Library has been a vital source of inspiration and support to writers. From Charles Dickens and George Eliot in the 1840s to Sir Kazuo Ishiguro and Sarah Waters today, writers of all different kinds have used the Library’s unparalleled lending collection and study spaces to produce countless works. Whether published as books or articles, or performed as plays or screenplays, these works have an economic as well as a social and cultural impact.
In 2020 we embarked on a project to understand the Library’s impact better. In particular, we wanted to learn more about the different ways in which the Library supports the creative process of its members and how that, in turn, contributes to the production of published works and benefits the UK economy.
The report undertaken by economic consultancy Nordicity and Chartered Accountants Saffrey Champness has revealed that The London Library generates an estimated annual value of £21.3m for the UK economy – equivalent to five times the Library’s annual operating expenditure. The intellectual property (IP) addition to this the IP creation enabled by the Library supports an estimated 460 full-time jobs across the UK’s creative industries.
The Library supports its members by providing unique access to a range of resources including one million volumes, an extensive eLibrary, research and reference assistance by our librarians, a studious and inspiring environment in which to work, and a community of members. Two thirds of the Library’s members are active in the production of creative IP such as published works of fiction and non-fiction, academia, screenwriting, poetry and playwriting. In fact the survey of members undertaken as part of this work revealed that The London Library’s 7200+ members produce on an annual basis:
- Over 700 published fiction or non-fiction books
- over 15,000 articles
- over 460 film scripts, TV screenplays or theatre scripts
The members who create these works attributed 33% of the creative process of this IP production to their membership of the Library.
The impact report concludes:
“The Library is hugely effective at stimulating and facilitating world-class creativity, and is determined to make its collection, spaces and creative community as accessible as possible to other potential and existing creatives. With increased public and private financial support, the Library will be able to invest in the physical spaces and outreach programmes that will enable the Library to continue reaching out beyond its traditional cohort of members. In this way, the Library can inspire and support future generations of writers and thinkers and continue to contribute to the UK’s world-leading position in research, storytelling and creativity.”
Case Studies from the report include:
William Boyd CBE
William Boyd is one of the UK’s most prolific and accomplished writers of fiction, non-fiction, film and TV screenplays and most recently stage plays. William joined the Library in 1983. He had just moved to London from Oxford and was looking for a library to replace the Bodleian Libraries that he had enjoyed whilst a lecturer at St Hilda’s College.
William has written 16 novels, 14 of which whilst being a member of the Library. Many of his novels have garnered critical acclaim and his 2006 work, Restless, won the Costa Book Award for Best Novel, and was adapted for TV as a BBC mini-series in 2012. His 1998 novel, Armadillo, was adapted by William himself and aired as a three-part series on the BBC in 2001. And his adaptation of his 2002 novel, Any Human Heart, aired on Channel 4 in 2010 and won the BAFTA for Best Series.
He has also written screenplays for Stars and Bars, Mr. Johnson, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, A Good Man in Africa, The Trench, Man to Man, Scoop, Sword of Honour and 1992’s Chaplin, which was directed by Richard Attenborough and received three Oscar nominations.
Since 2009, William has had three plays produced: Six Parties, Longing and The Argument.
In the early years of his Library membership, William would spend nearly every day at the Library writing. In the pre-internet 1980s, libraries such as this were essential for researching for a book. In fact, his 1987 novel, The New Confessions, was written entirely at the Library.
The Library also became something of a literary and social hub for William. He knew the chief librarian at the time from his Oxford days and would bump into other people he knew from within the literary or wider creative community.
Over the years, William has come to use the Library much less as a place to write – he now writes from home – but for him it will always be a fantastic place to find books and do research. He makes particular use of the Library’s newspaper and periodical archives – something that cannot be found on the internet.
William also still loves to wander between the Library’s stacks. Indeed, for him and other novelists, it is this freedom to explore that is so important.
Deborah Davis
Deborah Davis is a lawyer, historian, journalist, scriptwriter, and film and TV producer. She first joined the Library in 1988 and, over the years, has written for film, TV, theatre and radio.
She is best known for co-writing The Favourite (2016), which was directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starred Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz.
The Favourite was filmed at various locations around London and the South East, including Hampton Court Palace, Hatfield House and Danson House. And with a production budget of just over £11m, the film generated an estimated 250 full-time equivalent jobs (FTEs) of employment in the UK along with £13m in GVA.
The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2018 Venice Film Festival and was nominated for five Golden Globes and 10 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Its lead, Olivia Colman, won the Oscar for Best Actress. The film won seven BAFTAs in 2019, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay for Deborah.
The Favourite was also a tremendous box office success. It earned an estimated £73m globally at cinemas – nearly seven times the cost of production. Over a third (£25m) of this global box office came from North America, thereby, indicating the export value of this British television programme.
Deborah could not have written The Favourite without her Library membership. Whilst she did not write the script at the Library, it was an essential resource for the historical background of the story and the script. Indeed, she carried out virtually all of the research for the film at the Library.
At the Library, Deborah was able to find and draw upon original sources (letters and diaries), together with historical accounts and biographies related to Queen Anne’s court, including Winston Churchill’s biography of the Duke of Marlborough. This complemented copies of private letters between Sarah Churchill and Queen Anne, and Sarah’s memoirs, which Deborah discovered at the Library. These memoirs revealed the female relationship triangle at the heart of Queen Anne’s court.
Although Deborah does not write her scripts at the Library, she continues to use its collection to research historical detail for her film, TV, radio and theatre commissions, including a stage play about the 18th-century English poet, Alexander Pope.
Amber Medland
Amber first joined the Library In 2017 through the Library’s Supported Membership scheme – for half the cost of a gym membership. Making use of the Library “nearly every day when not working”, she has benefitted from the space and support for writing and research, guidance from the librarians, and the insight, inspiration and learning from participating in the occasional event. In its inaugural year of 2020, Amber was selected for the Emerging Writers Programme, which exposed her to working alongside 17 other new writers.
Since joining the Library, Amber has signed a book deal with Faber for her first published novel, Wild Pets, due out in 2021. Amber juggles writing, copywriting and a part-time job as well as a bustling homelife with five housemates, and credits the Library with providing the space and time needed to sign her first deal.
Amber praises the Library for its exceptionally knowledgeable staff and their highly curated reading lists as sources of information and inspiration. The Library has also helped Amber develop her confidence as a professional writer, and it helped her see writing as her ‘job’ for the first time.
Whilst “the building itself is a beautiful and inspiring space that is highly conducive to working”, Amber’s admiration for the Library lies also in “the sense of solidarity and encouragement when surrounded by other writers facing the same challenges and opportunities”.
In her three years as a member, Amber has appreciated an increased diversity amongst both the users and the written works, as “the books being ordered and stocked are becoming more diverse too”. Through her membership, she has been able to access books that she otherwise would not have been able to, due to their prohibitive cost.
The Library has been pivotal to Amber’s career as a new writer and she sees herself as a “member for life”, renewing her membership after her Supported Membership affordability scheme.
