Support the Library during our 180th anniversary
To celebrate the Library’s 180th anniversary why not adopt a book printed in the year the Library was founded and help us protect our outstanding collection. From science and fiction to poetry, biography and folklore, the Library holds a fascinating collection of books printed in 1841. Highlights include Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop, a copy of George Sand’s feminist novel Léila and an 1841 edition of London Library founder member Harriet Martineau’s abolitionist novel The Hour and the Man.
You can adopt your favourite book from just £100. Your adoption will include a bookplate with your name in your chosen volume, which will remain for the duration of the book’s lifetime and ensure your name is at the very heart of the Library’s collection. You can also adopt a book as a gift for £125. The gift package includes:
- The recipient’s name on a bookplate inside your chosen book
- A set of five London Library postcards
- A London Library notecard for your personal message
- A private tour of the Library for the recepient and a guest with the opportunity to see the bookplate in situ
You will find a full list of the books you can adopt below. Each adoption supports the development and preservation of the Library's unique and expanding collection.
Fiction
William Harrison Ainsworth, Guy Fawkes: Or, the Gunpowder Treason: An Historical Romance
William Harrison Ainsworth, Old Saint Paul's: A Tale of Plague and Fire
Charles Fenimore Cooper, The Deerslayer
Charles Dickens, Master Humphrey's Clock
Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop
Catherine Gore, Cecil, a Peer: A Sequel to Cecil, or, The Adventures of a Coxcomb
Catherine Gore, The Soldier of Lyons: A Tale of the Tuileries
Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris
G. P. R. James, The Ancient Regime: A Tale
Edward William Lane, The Thousand and One Nights, Commonly Called in England, The Arabian Nights' Entertainments
Frederick Marryat, Poor Jack
Harriet Martineau, The Hour and the Man: A Historical Romance
George Sand, Léila
History and Politics
British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Slavery and the Slave Trade in India
George L. Craik, Pictorial History of England
W. H. Maxwell, Life of Field-Marshal His Grace the Duke of Wellington
Sir John Gardner, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians
Philosophy and Religion
John Abercrombie, The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings
Immanuel Kant, La religion dans les limites de la raison
George Long, An Essay on the Moral Nature of Man
Robert Southey, The Book of the Church
Poetry and Drama
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: a Tragedy
James Hogg, The Queen's Wake: A Legendary Poem
Victor Hugo, Odes et Ballades
Louisa Frances Poulter, Imagination: A Poem
Science and Folklore
J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, A Collection of Letters Illustrative of the Progress of Science in England, from the Reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of Charles the Second
Charles Henry Knox, Traditions of Western Germany: The Black Forest, the Neckar, the Odenwald, the Tanus, the Rhine and the Moselle
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, Legendary Tales of the Highlands: A Sequel to Highland Rambles
Humphrey Lloyd, Lectures on the Wave-theory of Light
Robert Patterson, The Natural History of the Insects Mentioned in Shakespeare's Plays
Sport
Frank Lewis Dowling, Fistiana, or, The Oracle of the Ring: Comprising a Defence of British Boxing
Travel and Topography
Charles Knight, London
Jehangeer Nowrojee and Hirjeebhoy Merwanjee, Journal of a Residence of Two Years and a Half in Great Britain
Emma Roberts, Notes of an Overland Journey through France and Egypt to Bombay
In memoriam
Books can also be adopted in memoriam to remember those special to you. To find out more about this, or to ask about a particular book, please contact the Development Team on 020 7766 4795 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
If you would like to adopt a new book or a favourite book that was not published in 1841, please click here. If you are interested in making a one-off donation towards book acquisitions or conservation cost, please click here. To set up a regular donation to the Library's Book Fund to support the purchase of books for the Library, or make a larger donation to support the development and care of the collection, please contact the Development team directly on 020 7766 4795 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Please note:
- Although we endeavour to fulfil your book of choice some books may already have existing bookplates. Where this occurs we will suggest a suitable alternative
- Please allow up to three months for your bookplate to be placed in the book
- Tours must be booked in advance and are dependent on Library staff availability.
