TAKE A TOUR! The London Library is one of the world's great lending libraries, with an amazing collection of over 1 million books, and an equally extraordinary history. Behind its elegant facade overlooking St. James 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. | The London Library

Whether you're racing back to our Reading Rooms or researching remotely a little longer, we're taking everyone behind the bookshelves for a peek inside our gleaming tower of brass and glass – the King's Library. The focal point of our St Pancras building, the tower houses books collected by King George III. Among the treasures are copies of the Gutenberg Bible (1454/5), William Caxton’s first printing of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1476/7), and Robert Hooke’s Micrographia (1665), one the fir

The British Library was created on 1 July 1973. The core of the Library’s historical collections is based on a series of donations and acquisitions from the 18th century. These are known as the “foundation collections”, and they include the books and manuscripts of Sir Hans Sloane (d. 1753), whose decision to donate his library and natural history collection to the nation led to the formation of the British Museum. The trustees of the museum also purchased the Harleian Librarycollection of Rober