Literary lovers, listen up. There really is nothing quite like a good story to take you away from the worries of the world, and with the hoards of iconic poets , authors and playwrights that have called London home over the years, there’s no better place to delve into the magic of storytelling. According to Oscar Wilde, London is composed "entirely of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics", and their tales are waiting to be discovered.
If you’re looking to learn more about what lies between the lines, London has you covered. It’s the second largest library in the world (beaten only by Washington’s Library of Congress) and contains more than 150 million items dating back 4,000 years. Rare books, illuminated manuscripts, audiotapes, journals, newspapers and photographs are all contained in this massive Kings Cross building.
A lot of it is only accessible with a reader pass (which is easy enough to get), but the Treasures Gallery holds some true jewels: the Magna Carta, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, several works by Shakespeare, Jane Austen and the death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots, signed by Queen Elizabeth I. Regular exhibitions take place across the museum, with free ones in the entrance hall. bl.
uk The National Poetry Library is the largest public collection of modern poetry in the world. Since T.S.
Eliot and Herbert Read opened it in 1953, it has moved homes several times to contain its constantly expanding collection, settling on the South Bank. The librar.