The timing is impeccable. On the heels of the beginning of the festivities celebrating the 800 year anniversary of the Magna Carta, in which all four surviving copies of the original edition of 1215 edition will be displayed together for the first time, word comes that another early copy has been discovered! The four surviving copies of the Magna Carta being prepared for display at the British Library. Photograph: Clare Kendall/British Library/PA Unearthed at the Council Archives for the town of Sandwich the copy was found when researchers happened upon it while looking for a copy of the town's original Charter of...
British Library set to leave this world
It's Sci-Fi time at the British Library. The long-awaited, and destined to be a classic, exhibit Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it, opens on Friday."This new exhibition will invite visitors to enter the world of the future, alien worlds, parallel worlds and virtual worlds, and speculate on how our universe might change. These imaginings can provoke hopes and dreams, exhilaration or fear – and shed light on the time and place in which they were created. We hope to encourage visitors' questions such as: 'Is there such a thing as a perfect world?' 'When...
Peake Archive Takes British Library To New Heights
Mervyn Peake, Self-portrait, submitted to the Royal Academyin 1931. Now in the National Portrait Gallery.(All Images Courtesy of the Mervyn Peake Estate, mervynpeake.org )He's been been likened to Tolkien, Dickens, Kafka, and Poe, but the work of poet, painter, playwright, author, and illustrator Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) defies comparison. Anthony Burgess wrote in his introduction to the first volume of the Gormenghast Trilogy, Peake's most famous work: "There really is no close relative to it in all our prose literature. It is uniquely brilliant..." Now scholars and readers have a chance to see the creative process of such a singular talent....
Thomas Hardy Stays At Home, Thanks To 104 Year Old Friend.
Norrie Woodhall has a new claim to fame when it comes to Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy. She's just provided the inspiration for a successful campaign to keep some valuable Hardy manuscripts in his native Dorset. At 104 years-of-age, Norrie might seem an unlikely muse for Dorset's die hard Hardy fans. But she's been connected with the writer since before she was born: Norrie Woodhall says her mother was the inspiration for Hardy's tragic heroine, Tess of the D'Urbervilles.Augusta Noreen "Norrie" Bugler Woodhall is one of the last people alive who actually knew Thomas Hardy. When she was but a lass...
Dreadful E-Books Offered Gratis By British Library
One of the Most Popular Penny Dreadfuls, Starring Dick Turpin, Highwayman. (Circa 1866.)It's a red-hot, red letter day for Amazon Kindle owners. The British Library has announced that 65,000 rare 19th century literary first editions will be offered as free downloads to owners of the device beginning in Spring of 2010. Thanks to a joint venture with Microsoft, the no-cost titles will reproduce the original type-face and illustrations from such classic works as Charles Dickens's Bleak House, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.While having an electronic facsimile of a valuable first edition is a...