Issue 7

M A G A Z I N ESPRING 2010 / ISSUE 7 £3.50

MOCK THE WEAK

THE ART OFCHANGE

MOCK THE WEAKJohn O’Farrell on the state of contemporary satire

LAST WORDSLAST WORDSJames Fergusson traces the evolution of the obituary

THE ART OFCHANGEThe Library’s new spaces revealed

001_Cover Iss 7 16/3/10 20:23 Page 1

THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE / ISSUE 7

THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE 3

CONTENTS

5 EDITORIAL LETTER

6 CONTRIBUTORS

9 OVER MY SHOULDERFortnum’s archivist Andrea Tanner on howshe uses the Library for her research

10 READING LISTWriter and broadcaster Alex Bellos selectssome mathematical gems from the Library’scollections

12 MOCK THE WEAKJohn O’Farrell examines satire under New Labour

16 LAST WORDSJames Fergusson on the golden age of thenewspaper obituary

20 HIDDEN CORNERSChris Schüler describes the highlights of theLibrary’s German collections

24 THE ART OF CHANGEThe new spaces created during Phase 2 ofthe building works are revealed anddiscussed

33 MEMBERS’ NEWS

36 THE HAY FESTIVAL

38 RESTAURANT LISTINGS

39 DIARY

Where was the Spitting Image ofthe Noughties? John O’Farrelloffers an insider’s view of modernsatire and examines why politicianstoday manage to escape attack

12

James Fergusson celebrates thesometimes obscure delights of thenewspaper obituary, and the threatthe genre currently faces

16

The Library’s German collectionshave built up over the years into afascinatingly diverse selection, from Goethe and Stefan Zweig toGünter Grass. Chris Schüler revealshis personal favourites

20

With Phase 2 of the Library’sbuilding works now drawing to aclose, Inez Lynn discusses thesignificance of the changes, andarchitect Graham Haworth talksabout the complexities of the brief

24

© Spitting Image

Iss 7 Contents.doc 16/3/10 20:27 Page 3


EDITORIAL LETTER

As promised last time, this issue turns the spotlight on the Library’sbuilding development project, revealing what has been achieved sofar from two different perspectives: I was asked to explain what thephysical changes will mean to the Library and its members; and,in conversation with Eric Parry, our architect Graham Haworthreflects on the challenges of designing for such a well-loved institutionand the team’s approach to meeting them. Phase 2 of the projectwill be completed this summer and I hope many of you will be ableto join us for some guided exploration of the new spaces and acelebratory drink. Your invitation is enclosed – do please rememberto respond if you wish to attend as it is vital for us to have an idea of numbers beforehand.

Summer is also the time for our Annual Lecture, which this year moves to Hay-on-Wye where it willform part of the Hay Festival, providing us with a much-needed opportunity for promoting the Libraryto potential members and for meeting current members in a relaxed setting. The lecture takes place onSaturday 5 June at 4pm and will be given by Sir Max Hastings. For more details and information on howto obtain tickets, please see p.36.

For those who find a certain fascination in observing the lives of others we reveal in this issue two verydifferent approaches: John O’Farrell muses on the current state of political satire and the ways in whichit has changed since his early days writing for Spitting Image and Have I Got News for You, while JamesFergusson looks back on the history of writing and publishing newspaper obituaries.

Finally, may I draw members’ attention to p.33 on which you will find our annual call for trusteevolunteers and an outline from the Chairman of what is involved? Your Library Needs You!

Inez T.P.A. LynnLibrarian

FROM THE L IBRARIAN

Published on behalf of The London Library byRoyal Academy Enterprises Ltd. Colourreproduction by adtec. Printed by TradewindsLondon. Published 19 March 2010 © 2010 TheLondon Library. The opinions in this particularpublication do not necessarily reflect the views ofThe London Library. All reasonable attempts havebeen made to clear copyright before publication.

Cover ImagePhase 2, Art Room.

© Paul Raftery.

EditorialPublishersJane Grylls and Kim JennerEditor Mary ScottDesign Joyce MasonProduction Jessica CashResearcher Emily Pierce

Editorial CommitteeDavid BreuerMiranda LewisHarry MountPeter ParkerChristopher PhippsErica Wagner

AdvertisingJane Grylls 020 7300 5661Kim Jenner 020 7300 5658Emily Pierce 020 7300 5675Development Office, The London LibraryLottie Cole 020 7766 4716Aimee Heuzenroeder 020 7766 4734

Correction: copyright of the George Finch photographof Howard Somervell, Arthur Wakefield and GeorgeMallory, printed on p.22 of issue 6 of the magazine,was mistakenly attributed to the Royal GeographicalSociety. We are happy to clarify that copyright is heldby the family of the photographer.

Magazine feedback and editorial enquiries should be addressed to [email protected]

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CONTRIBUTORS

6 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE

Andrea Tanner JOINED THE LIBRARY IN 2007

Andrea Tanner has worked as a professionalgenealogist at the College of Arms and as ahistorical researcher. Her Ph.D. thesis took her intomedical history, which led to her creation of awebsite detailing patients in Victorian hospitals forGreat Ormond Street Hospital. She has lookedafter the archive at Fortnum & Mason since 1996.

John O’Farrell JOINED THE LIBRARY IN 1998

John O’Farrell was a TV comedy writer for tenyears before the publication of his politicalmemoir, Things Can Only Get Better. His publishedworks also include three bestselling novels. AnUtterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain ispublished in paperback next month.

Alex Bellos JOINED THE LIBRARY IN 2008

Alex Bellos was formerly the Guardian’s correspondentin South America and is the author of Futebol:The Brazilian Way of Life, and the ghostwriter ofPelé: The Autobiography. He has a degree inmathematics and philosophy, which provided himwith the inspiration for his latest book, Alex’sAdventures in Numberland.

James Fergusson JOINED THE LIBRARY IN 1977

James Fergusson is a writer and antiquarianbookseller. His book catalogue Ahasuerus theBookseller celebrated his first employer, RobinWaterfield. His next will be of Scottish books. He was founding obituaries editor of The Independent, 1986–2007.

C.J. Schüler JOINED THE LIBRARY IN 1993

C.J. Schüler is a freelance writer and journalistspecialising in literature, travel and the arts. His workhas appeared in the Independent, the FinancialTimes, the Tablet and the New Statesman, andhe blogs about books on the Independentwebsite. Co-author of The Traveler’s Atlas, he iscurrently Chairman of the Authors’ Club.

Graham Haworth Graham Haworth is a founding partner ofarchitects Haworth Tompkins, whose projects inaddition to the Library include the HaywardGallery and the Royal Court Theatre. He hasfeatured in several TV programmes on architecture,including The Art Show, Dreamspaces andBuildings That Shaped Britain.

Eric Parry Eric Parry RA founded his award-winningarchitectural practice in 1983; its portfolio includes5 Aldermanbury Square, and the restoration ofSt Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square.He currently serves on the Royal AcademyArchitecture Committee, among others.

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Do you generally use books on yourparticular subject from the Library, or doyou explore other subject areas? Do youborrow books for pleasure as well asresearch?As Fortnum’s is more than 300 years old,

research can lead almost anywhere.

Recently, I’ve used the Library to study

Everest expeditions, ocean liners, the

botanist Frank Kingdon Ward, chocolate,

the singer Al Bowlly, the history of winter

sports, Mayfair in the Second World War, and

pigsticking in India. I was researching a

project on Fortnum’s Expeditions

Department in the 1920s and 1930s, and

also answering enquiries from customers

on products sold to their families in the

past. Most of the books I take out are for

work, but I have begun borrowing novels

that have long been on my ‘must-read’ list.

What do you think is special about theLibrary? What does it mean to you?Where to begin? I came to the London

Library rather late, after a lifetime of

working in reference libraries, university


How frequently do you use the Library?Several times a week. I work in Piccadilly,

and it has become my own private reference

world. A quick change of shoes (am I the

only person to trap an unsuitable heel in

the metal flooring?), and there is heaven.

What distracts you from your work?The stacks, especially during the Phase 2

work, when the resulting diversions

meant I often got lost. It’s rather delightful

when you are in the wrong aisle and

something catches your eye.

How do you use the Library? Do you studybooks there or take them home? What isyour routine when you visit the Library? If I have checked something online, I

usually make a beeline for the volume,

then I look around, as there is always

something useful nestling nearby. My usual

habit is to browse the latest editions of

learned journals, then the Biography,

Topography, and English Literature sections.

Although I mostly study at the Library,

my desk at home has a healthy pile of

books with the distinctive London Library

label on them.

Do you have any favourite parts of theLibrary that you tend to go to? The third floor, where there is usually a

free table. My secret vice is the old

Country Life section in the basement.

libraries and archives (now the noisy arena

of genealogists: where do they think they

are?). The London Library is a centre of

exquisite civilisation. I’m not sure if it is

the sense of ownership, the atmosphere,

the wonderful staff or the freedom to

browse in the stacks and allow curiosity

to take the lead. It feels like home, and I

am only sorry it took me so long to find it.

Is there a Library neighbour you dread?Grunters, coughers? (No names!)Yes, but when one’s neighbour has a heavy

cold, an irritating cough or a Johnsonian

attitude to personal hygiene (you know

who you are, gentlemen), it is easy to move.

Thank goodness there are no numbered

tables to keep one as trapped as St Teresa.

Have you made friends or useful contactsthrough the Library?Yes to both, and I trust it will always be so.

Has the London Library had anyparticular influence on your work? The Library gives me a degree of research

freedom, and has certainly speeded up my

output. Recently, I undertook an urgent

public project on the history of Piccadilly.

If it were not for the resources at the

London Library, it would have turned out

a half-cooked pudding, and Fortnum’s

reputation (and that of its archivist) might

have suffered as a consequence.

OVER MYSHOULDERAndrea Tanner, archivist at Fortnum and Mason,explains why the resources on offer at the Libraryare essential for her research

I’ve used the Library

to study ocean liners,

chocolate, and

pigsticking in India

‘

’

Fortnum & Mason summer catalogue (1958),illustration by Edward Bawden.

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READING LIST

BEHIND THE

The writer and broadcaster Alex Bellos describes the titles hehas found useful while researching his forthcoming book

My latest book, Alex’s Adventures in Numberland: Dispatches from the Wonderful World of Mathematics, ispublished by Bloomsbury next month. The London Library may have more stacks devoted to history andliterature, but its maths shelves also contain much rewarding material.

Number, the Language of Science byTobias Dantzig (London 1962). S. Mathematics.First published in 1930 and still in print,this is a masterpiece of popular sciencewriting. Written in unusually eloquent prose– not just because he was a mathematician,but because he was born in Latvia and onlyemigrated to the US in his mid-20s – Dantzigexplores the cultural context behindmathematics and meditates on the powerof numbers. It is aimed at the highbrowreader, but this shouldn’t put you off.Albert Einstein was a fan, calling it‘perhaps the most lucid history of thenumber concept ever written’.

The Universal History of Numbers byGeorges Ifrah (London 1998). S. Mathematics.Ifrah was a French schoolteacher whowanted to know where numbers came from.The result is this gigantic, ambitious,sprawling tome that explains the history ofthe world’s most important number systems.I found the most fascinating section to bethe pages on India, where the numerals weuse today originated. (We call them Arabicnumerals, but they are really from India.)The Indians invented the concept of zero,arguably the greatest intellectual leap in thehistory of mathematics. Ifrah’s research showshow much maths owes to religion andmysticism: the invention of zero occurred ina culture where ‘nothingness’ was at the heartof its metaphysics. The symbol for 0, forinstance, was chosen not because it means‘nothing’ but in order to represent eternity.

The Number Sense: How the MindCreates Mathematics by StanislasDehaene (Oxford 1997). S. Mathematics.Dehaene – also French – started life as amathematician, and is now one of theworld’s most eminent neuroscientists.The book mixes psychology, neuroscienceand the author’s understanding of mathsin order to analyse why and how the brainthinks of numbers. While some of theneuroscience might be a bit out of date,the book is terrifically written and worth aread for the anecdotes – about animalsthat can count, babies doing arithmeticand why Asians are so good at numbers.

‘Mathematical Games’ by MartinGardner, in Scientific American,1957–81. Periodicals, folio.The most eloquent maths writer wasn’teven a mathematician. Gardner was ajournalist and magic enthusiast who wrotethis column in Scientific American for 24years. His wit and erudition remainpeerless; he inspired so many people totake up maths that you could make a casefor saying he was the writer who mostinfluenced maths in the last half century.Sometimes the joy of research is when theeye wanders: I loved reading these old issuesof Scientific American. The 1950s and 1960swere the magazine’s golden years, coveringbreakthrough developments, for examplein astronomy, rocket science and genetics.You can’t read them without absorbing thethrill of discovery and an excitement aboutthe future – and a pride that scientists werefrontline soldiers in the Cold War.

Liber Abaci by Fibonacci (London2003). S. Mathematics. In his book on arithmetic, Liber Abaci(1202), the Italian author Fibonacciintroduced Arabic numerals to Europe,which he learnt when he was growing upin Islamic North Africa. The booksounded the death-knell for Romannumerals in Europe. With a better systemof numerals, arithmetic was democratised– previously calculations were the preserveof trained abacists. Fibonacci marvels atlong multiplication and long division, andprovides lots of arithmetical tricks andproblems. Despite its historical importance,the Liber Abaci was only translated intoEnglish 800 years after its first publication.It is a fascinating text about what was inits time the most advanced scientificnovelty: the system of digits from 0 to 9.

‘Perplexities’ by H.E. Dudeney, in StrandMagazine, 1910–30. Periodicals.H.E. Dudeney was a true British original.From a family of Sussex sheep farmers, hestarted as a clerk in the civil service aged13 when he began to compose his ownpuzzles and submit them to magazines.He became Britain’s most noted deviser ofmaths puzzles and, even though he wasself-taught, some of his puzzles touchedon (and solved) deep maths problems.For 20 years he wrote ‘Perplexities’, apuzzle column in the delightful StrandMagazine (itself worth flicking through).‘Perplexities’ was charming, insightfuland presented terrifically creative puzzles,many of which are recycled today.

BOOK


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hen they come to write the history books about

the Labour governments, they will search

through the libraries and the broadcasting

vaults to see how New Labour was portrayed

by the satirists and comedians of the day and

will conclude that whole sections of the archives must have been

mislaid. Because it seems to be one of the unwritten laws of the

British Constitution that a Labour government will always

endure less satirical scorn than a Conservative one.

The dying days of the 1960s Tory government prompted a

satire boom that spawned Beyond the Fringe, That Was The Week

That Was and Private Eye. The arrival of Margaret Thatcher was

the cue for the rise of political cabaret, Not the Nine O’Clock

News and Spitting Image. But the most satirical sketch I can

remember the impressionist Mike Yarwood doing about Labour’s

Jim Callaghan was a song about whether or not one pronounced

the ‘g’ in his surname. It’s a long time ago, but I don’t think it was

this satirical assault that finally brought his government down.

So where was the Spitting Image of the Noughties? Why was

there no defining caricature of Tony Blair or Gordon Brown in

the way that we remember the grey John Major or Peter Cook’s

Harold Macmillan? As someone who switched from TV comedy

to writing books at exactly the point that Blair was elected, I can

hardly pretend to be blameless or neutral on this issue (especially

since I have the bizarre qualification of having written jokes

about and for the two Labour leaders). But even the comedy

writers who preferred not to nail their political colours to the

mast seem to have found themselves busy elsewhere during

the past decade or so.

Cast members of the 1963 season of the BBC TV programme That Was the WeekThat Was. Left to right: David Kernan, Kenneth Cope, Irwin Watson, Al Mancini,William Rushton, David Frost. © BBC Photo Library.

John O’Farrell looks at satire under New Labour and asks if moderncomedians have found easier targets in the powerless

W

MOCKTHE WEAK?

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In fact the satirical bull’s-

eyes of the twenty-first century

have been characters right

at the other end of the

social scale – the

uneducated,

working class and

ignorant: Little

Britain’s Vicky Pollard,

Catherine Tate’s Lauren or

Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G.

That’s not to say that those

creations aren’t satirical

masterstrokes – crucially all

of them possess an arrogance

that gives us permission to

laugh at them. But while the

Labour government was

talking about tackling poverty

and education, we laughed at

the poor and uneducated.

Some of this must be related

to the breaking of taboos. When

Beyond the Fringe mocked such

sacred cows as war heroes and

the Church of England, there were

howls of outrage; the laughter was

all the stronger for the accompanying

shock. When Spitting Image produced

a puppet of the Queen Mother or

Jesus, it made the front page of

the tabloids (although no specific

Jesus puppet was ever in fact

made; as I remember it, the

puppet-wrangler just wandered

into the Writers’ Room clutching

the latex Mike Rutherford from

the band Genesis dressed in a

white robe, and the producer said, ‘Yeah, that’ll do’).

But by the twenty-first century there was nothing shocking

about criticising the British Establishment. Jonathan Coe, whose

novel What A Carve Up! (1994) is the definitive literary satire of

the Thatcher years, reflects that audiences want to hear something

new: ‘Perhaps contempt for politicians is so settled and ingrained

that it almost seems pointless for writers to attack them,’ he suggests.

Coe chaired a seminar on political comedy at last year’s

Cheltenham Literature Festival. Apart from myself (invited to

share my experience of writing for Spitting Image and Have I Got

News For You), there was the great David Nobbs, who began his

writing career on That Was the Week That Was, and Armando

Iannucci who, perhaps more than anyone, has led comedy

audiences away from the politicians, as he satirised news

coverage or the spin doctors who tried to control it.

What was so remarkable about this panel, was that all four of

us agreed that politicians should actually be held in higher

regard by the British people; that most MPs are honest and

hardworking and really ought to get paid a bit more for the

incredibly long hours that they do. Coe added: ‘Audiences have

become more politically savvy over the last 20 years – I think this

all started with Yes Minister – and now they see the politicians as

hapless front men.’ Iannucci asserted that his TV series The

Thick Of It was more an attack on the system in which politicians

find themselves, and that he hoped people might even feel sorry

for the ministers being sworn at by Malcolm Tucker.

Like Coe, the comedian and activist Mark Thomas thinks

that it is a sign of sophistication in audiences that fewer comics

tend to target the actual politicians. ‘The public understand that

MPs have become cannon fodder. If you remember when New


The landscape has beenfurther complicated bypoliticians “joining thesatirati”, getting on to panelshows and into comedysketches

‘

’

The puppets of Neil Kinnock and John Major, from the ITVsatirical series Spitting Image (1984–96). © Spitting Image.

The character Vicky Pollard, playedby Matt Lucas, from the BBC TVseries Little Britain, created byDavid Walliams and Lucas. ©BBC.



Labour first got in, the symbol of this was the pager …,’ he

recalls. His Channel 4 programme managed to get hold of the

pager numbers of every Labour MP and, during Jack Straw’s

speech to party conference, he sent out a message instructing

them all to stand and shout for more. And rather wonderfully

some of them did. Engaging in what he calls ‘mischief’ is how

Thomas has managed to extract laughter from more difficult

targets, such as corporations and anonymous but powerful

institutions. He is not interested in pointing out that Gordon

Brown has a glass eye and a lazy jaw: ‘If that’s what you think

counts as satire, you should just stick to Top Gear,’ he says. With

books about the arms trade and the ‘global adventures of Coca-

Cola’, he has aimed his invective at where he believes real power

lies, even if it is harder to engage audiences with corporation law

and international trade practices than with the easily recognisable

individuals we elect as our figureheads.

Chris Morris also found new targets beyond traditional

politicians. In his controversial Brass Eye programmes, first

broadcast in 1997, he satirised modern media obsessions like

paedophilia and drugs. In the most memorable episode, he filmed

the likes of Noel Edmonds and Sir Bernard Ingham warning of

the dangers of ‘Cake’, which celebrities explained was ‘a made-up

drug’, as they earnestly held up a pill the size of their head. The

joke was on the TV personalities, at a time when celebrity seemed

to be becoming a currency more valuable than political office.

But there must also be a relationship between levels of

public outrage and an eagerness to mock those in charge.

During the extended honeymoon for New Labour, the absence

of biting political satire was understandable. After the bitter

divisions of the 1980s and the sleaze of the mid-1990s, politics

after 1997 seemed to be painted in gentler, pastel colours.

Harry Enfield starred in an ITV adaptation of Private Eye’s

caricature of Blair as the Vicar of St Albion, but it had nothing

like the impact or resonance of his famous creations such as

Wayne and Waynetta Slob or Loadsamoney. An animated

descendant of Spitting Image, the show 2DTV ran for five series,

but more fun was had with George Bush than the British cabinet.

Jon Culshaw did a fine impression of Blair on Dead Ringers but,

post-Spitting Image, traditional impressionist shows did not feel

like they were pushing back any boundaries. Rory Bremner

moved with the times, becoming aware that just doing the voices

of political leaders was not enough, and his show became more

research-based and analytical, with the performers John Bird

and John Fortune (the great survivors of the 1960s satire boom)

lampooning the figures behind the scenes in their sketches.

Bill Dare, who produced Spitting Image, Dead Ringers and

Radio 4’s The Now Show, wonders if the New Labour personalities

themselves made them less susceptible to caricature: ‘Thatcher

and Major could be captured in a one-word idea – “man” for

Thatcher and “grey” for Major, ideas that came with a strong

visual image,’ he says. ‘Blair seemed much more complex. The

fact that there was perceived to be less difference between the

political parties also made it harder to pin them down.’

But even after the political watershed of the Iraq war, ‘Teflon

Tony’ and his cabinet managed to avoid a direct hit from the

nation’s best satirists. The occasional television dramas that

attempted to satirise the scandals of the Labour government

seemed, well, laboured. In the theatres, various playwrights

Cover of Private Eye, December 2005. Cover of the Private Eye annual, 2003.



vented their spleens, but audiences generally nodded and

applauded rather than laughed. At one point I found myself on

a TV magazine programme alongside Rory Bremner, being

challenged by a Tory member of the public, who demanded to

know why satirists were giving this government such an easy ride.

The automatic assumption might be that satirists tend to be

left wing and thus pull their punches when it comes to Labour’s

turn in power. But I think it goes a little deeper than this. Yes, most

satirists that I have known are on the left, but they do not fail to

hit the target with Labour governments because they like them;

nothing could be further from the truth. In fact I think the

opposite is the case; it is because they are so incandescent with

rage at the sense of personal betrayal and disappointment that

they lose the ability to be funny. And so the same acerbic wit

that applies a deft scalpel to Conservative politicians lashes out

angrily at Labour ministers with a blunt cudgel, and audiences

turn away un-amused.

The landscape has been further complicated by the

politicians themselves ‘joining the satirati’, getting on to panel

shows and into comedy sketches. In my book An Utterly

Exasperated History of Modern Britain (2009), I claimed (without

a shred of evidence) that Charles Kennedy would not have won

the leadership of the Liberal Democrats and Boris Johnson

would not have won the Conservative nomination for London

Mayor but for their repeat TV appearances on Have I Got News

For You. More than one reviewer challenged this apparently

unprovable assertion, but I am convinced that it was the ability

of these politicians to be entertaining and appealing to a wider

audience that won them the votes of ordinary party members

who had barely even heard of the other candidates.

Rather than fearing the most popular satire show of the

1990s, politicians were rather keen to take part in it themselves.

The rehabilitation of Neil and Christine Hamilton began after they

publicly took it all on the chin from the regulars on Have I Got

News For You. Politicians need to show they have a well-rounded

sense of humour; mocking the opponents might get them a few

points with their established supporters, but being prepared to

laugh at themselves is what really wins over the neutrals.

Blair went even further; while he was still Prime Minister he

did the voice for his own appearance in The Simpsons and

starred in a sketch with Catherine Tate for Comic Relief. His

acting was so impressive during this performance that it left

the rest of us rather uneasy about all those other times he had

seemed so convincing and sincere about peace, poverty or the

People’s Princess.

All this has added to the uneasy sense that both satirists and

politicians are part of one well-paid celebrity club. It is almost as

if some politicians were looking up at the fame and status of the

comedians, hoping that a little showbiz glamour might rub off

on them, rather than looking down their noses at these angry

outsiders hurling brickbats at the high and mighty.

But as power has ebbed away from Westminster, the media

has grown in influence and reach. That is the reason why the

apparatchiks in The Thick of It are desperate to influence how

ministers and policies are presented; because the fourth estate

has eclipsed the other three. The best satirists have realised

this and looked beyond personality and caricature to illuminate

the new corridors of power, wherever they may be. Political

satire is alive and well, because of, not despite, its lack of interest

in party leaders.

So if David Cameron wins power in 2010, he may find that

things have moved on since millions of viewers tuned in to watch

the rubber doubles of the last Tory cabinet. It might appear that

twenty-first-century comedians have given their governments

an easier ride, but in a sense they have been far more insulting.

Highly respected ministers were shocked and offended to find

themselves being lampooned in the 1960s. But, half a century

later, being ignored hurts them a great deal more.

A defaced Conservative campaignposter featuring David Cameron, 2010.© Seamus McCauley.

MOCK THE WEAK



he last decade of the twentiethcentury and the early years ofthe twenty-first will be looked onas a golden age for newspaperobituaries. The rules have all

changed: once an obscure genre, obituariesare now a necessary weapon in any seriouspaper’s armoury. When the internet tookoff, British obituaries became readingmaterial worldwide; obituary websites anddiscussion groups proliferated; and therewas hardly a pay wall to be seen anywhere.

Take the example of Simon Nowell-Smith, sometime Librarian of the LondonLibrary. Nowell-Smith was a lucky man.If he had died ten years earlier than he did,he would have been accorded not fournewspaper obituaries but one – in TheTimes. Before he became Librarian in 1950he had been on the staff of The Times, andhe continued to contribute obituaries(anonymously) to the paper, and articles(often anonymously) to the Times LiterarySupplement. When in 1972 the Librarywas undertaking yet another fundraisingdrive, it was he who was summoned to filla double-page spread for the TLS: entitled‘London Library occasions’, his article istriumphantly anecdotal.

Nowell-Smith was not a great star; hewas not a household name. He was anamateur in terms of librarianship (andserved only six years in post), but he was anelegant writer and one of the most intelligentbook collectors of his day, a Jamesian and abibliographical scholar who put together anextraordinary collection of English versefrom the Romantics to the moderns, manyof the books with bravura associations.They were sampled in a memorableexhibition at the Bodleian Library in 1983,Wordsworth to Robert Graves and Beyond.

Three years later, and ten years beforehis death, British newspaper obituarieswere at a very low ebb. The Times, whoseobituaries department had once been awell-oiled machine run on Whitehalllines, creaked awkwardly on, unbotheredby competition. The historian John Grigg(then Chairman, later President of theLondon Library) was enlisted to spice upobituary coverage, only to cause outragewith The Times’s provocative notice forthe dancer Sir Robert Helpmann. TheDaily Telegraph produced the occasionalsingle-column tribute to a county figureand the Guardian the odd few lines on amusician or sportsman by Neville Cardus,now 11 years dead. It was not a good timeto die in the newspapers.

In July 1986, however, two thingshappened. Hugh Massingberd, a formereditor at Burke’s Peerage, went to theTelegraph, still in its antique palace inFleet Street, as assistant obituaries editor.A passionate playgoer, he was inspired to

subvert the traditional drear curriculumvitae of the newspaper obituary, he latersaid, by Roy Dotrice’s one-man show at theCriterion Theatre based on John Aubrey’sBrief Lives. When Aubrey/ Dotrice readout an ‘ineffably dull’ account of a barrister,and snorted, ‘He got more by his prickthan his practice’, that, said Massingberd,was his ‘blinding light’. He gave himselfup to anecdote thereafter.

It was in the same month that I arrivedat 40 City Road, next to the Dissenters’burial ground of Bunhill Fields, as obituarieseditor of a still-to-be-published new ‘quality’newspaper, the Independent. An Oxfordantiquarian bookseller in my day job,selling books to Simon Nowell-Smithamong others, I took my inspiration fromtwo historic enterprises, the Gentleman’sMagazine founded by Edward Cave in1731, and the Dictionary of NationalBiography instituted by Leslie Stephen(another London Library President) in1882. On my way to be interviewed byAndreas Whittam Smith, the new paper’sfounding editor, I read a majestic biographyof Stephen by Noel Annan (the thenLondon Library President) on the train.

The Gentleman’s Magazine obituarieswere a wonderful institution, monthlylists of the interesting dead, a democraticcalendar of curious anecdotes. The DNB,by contrast, appointed experts to writeindividual signed notices under theefficient and disciplined direction ofStephen and his lieutenant and successorSidney Lee. After more than a centurythe DNB retains a timeless authority;wide-ranging, readable, a monument oforiginal scholarship, it was one of thegreat achievements of the Victorian age.

Massingberd went one way, practising

LAST

WORDST

John Aubrey’s Brief Lives, 1972 Penguin edition.

James Fergusson on the rise to prominence of the newspaper obituary

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The Gentleman’s Magazineobituaries were a wonderfulinstitution, monthly lists of theinteresting dead, a democraticcalendar of curious anecdotes

‘

an often hilarious take on the tired, smug,mechanical obituaries of old. He specialisedin deadpan humour and English debunkery.He liked nothing better than Boy’s Ownmilitary heroes, appalling aristocrats withtitles as long as their criminal records,dodgy schoolmasters, mad millionairesand femmes fatales from the chorus line.He admitted to a soft spot for unlikelyWodehousian peers: ‘The Master wouldundoubtedly have felt at home with say, the6th Earl of Carnarvon (“relentless raconteurand most uncompromisingly direct ladies’man”), the 9th Earl of St Germans (whoserecreations were “huntin’ the slipper,shootin’ a line, fishin’ for compliments”) andthe “Cock o’ the North”, the 12th Marquessof Huntly (“I still have my own teeth. Whyshould I marry some dried-up old bag?”).’

We at the Independent went anotherway. I insisted that all obituaries be signed

(a novelty for Britain), that we encourage aplurality of voice and a diversity of subject,that we be less doctrinaire and lessparochial, and not concentrate only onthe ‘officer’ class. We wanted authentichistory, well written, and cameo biographies;we relished difficult academics, untranslatedpoets, untranslatable graffiti artists,Aboriginal dream-painters, Scotland’sgreatest potato collector, Britain’s oldestworking ploughman; and we led the fieldin commemorating a generation scytheddown by the Aids epidemic of the late1980s. We aimed our obituaries not at thereadership of clubby coevals, speakers ofcode and partners in euphemism, but at alarger, younger audience. Obituaries wereto be presented as normal newspaper‘features’ and illustrated accordingly, notjust with passport snaps but with portraits,paintings and cartoons, with photographs

’

Above Stone angel, Abney Park Cemetery. © Judie Grylls.Left The Gentleman’s Magazine, a detail from thecontents page of number XVII, May 1732.

illustrating the subject’s work. As for vitalfacts, the Independent’s freestandingthumbnail summaries at the end of eachobituary have been imitated, in one formor another, all over the world.

In 1996, when Simon Nowell-Smithdied, he was noticed by all four ‘quality’newspapers. The Times allowed him 770words, which compares with the 740 theygave his predecessor as Librarian, C.J.Purnell, in 1959, or the 740 given hissuccessor, Stanley Gillam, in 2004. Thereseems to be a fixed Times tariff for LondonLibrary librarians. Even the great Sir CharlesHagberg Wright, mentor to Purnell andthe man who, over his 47-year reign from1893, shaped the London Library as it stillis today, only received 620 when he diedin harness, hoping at 77 to reach theLibrary’s centenary year of 1941. But thosewords were swift, pertinent and honourable,and followed up within the week by twosigned additions. The first was by the cricketwriter Sir Home Gordon, writing ‘as anintimate friend’: ‘Those who only saw[Wright] in the Reform Club or the LondonLibrary had no idea what a playboy hewas on his holidays, swopping yarns withKerry peasants, insisting on riding astubborn mule during a festa at Palermo,



or teaching urchins to turn somersaults atBlois.’ The second was by H.A.L. Fisher(London Library President, writing themonth before he himself died), recallinghow Leslie Stephen ‘came home one daysaying that he had secured a mostwonderful young man’ as Librarian – andthat Wright had once met Lenin at luncheonand thought him ‘dogmatic and mediocre’.

The Telegraph gave Nowell-Smith 580words, like The Times piece unsigned (butwith no sign of any original work), and theGuardian 800, by Nicolas Barker (LondonLibrary Chairman and more usually anIndependent contributor). Nowell-Smith was‘small in stature but handsome (and wellaware of his good looks)’, said Barker, andbrought to the London Library ‘needed freshair in abundance’. The longest obituary and,with The Times piece, the first to appear,was that in the Independent, 1,190 words byClaire Preston, Nowell-Smith’s sometimesecretary and now Fellow in English atSidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

‘Each morning,’ she began, ‘SimonNowell-Smith’s first order of business wasscanning the daily newspaper obituaries.He would explain that he was checking tobe sure he hadn’t died without knowingit. That such a confusion might arise isnot surprising, for if he had any views onthe next world he must have imaginedheaven as a place much like earth: acomfortable, hospitable house, filled withsuperb rare books, a serious cellar, set in awell-tended and abundant garden, andabove all presided over by someone quitea lot like himself.’

Of all these generous obituaries hersis the easiest-written, the most unbuttonedand accessible. One gets a true sense ofthis diffident, attractive man, happiest athome with his books or composingclerihews in Greek – and not so happy onthe stairs of the London Library: ‘he wouldnot permit himself, ’ writes Preston, ‘tobe compared to the famous men ofantiquarian books; the charming portraitphotograph of him which hangs alongsideother luminaries such as T.S. Eliot in thestairwell of the London Library [it has sincebeen relocated] worried and distressed himin the implied comparison’.

The luminaries of the obituaries pagesdon’t all shine with so bright a light. One ofthe joys of obituaries is not knowing whoyou will find there (or whether you willfind yourself – Robert Graves is said to haveseen his own obituary printed on threeoccasions). In any given week there are notmany household names, and it is the minorcharacters that make up the best material.The week that Nowell-Smith died, he sitsin varied company in the Independent.Here are the Cambridge Anglo-Saxonprofessor P.A.M. Clemoes, by one of hissuccessors, Michael Lapidge; Olga Rudge,the violinist and friend of Ezra Pound, bythe poet Peter Russell (‘I found myself, ’writes Russell, ‘caught between a womanwho wanted her lover completely to herselfand a legal wife, equally devoted, whowanted just the same thing’); James Kirkupon the novelist Claude Mauriac, FrançoisMauriac’s son who married Marcel Proust’sniece; Tam Dalyell MP on Ron Hayward,General Secretary of the Labour Party; theracing journalist Tim Fitzgeorge-Parker onBrigadier Roscoe Harvey (‘the PrinceRupert of modern warfare’); and BBChistorian Leonard Miall on the Boat Race

Simon Nowell-Smith’s first orderof business was scanning the dailynewspaper obituaries. He wouldexplain he was checking to be surehe hadn’t died without knowing it

‘

’The portrait of Simon Nowell-Smith, which previouslyhung on the Library’s main staircase, and is now beingrelocated. Copyright unknown.

commentator John Snagge (famous forsaying after his launch broke down, ‘Idon’t know who is winning. It is eitherOxford or Cambridge!’).

This is but a single week, 14 years ago,a random handful of contributions from afew of the regiment of contributors theIndependent recruited. There is still adogmatic rift between the advocates ofsigned and unsigned obituaries. Times andTelegraph aficionados argue that anonymitylends objectivity. But is accountability notequally important? Once, all newspaperjournalism was anonymous; now onlyleaders and (in some papers) obituaries hidebehind a veil. Anonymity often concealslaziness; it can be a cover for personalmalice. The best signed obituaries, I contend,are always better than the best of theunsigned; and they have a lasting veracity.

Of those named writers from 1996,four are now themselves dead. Peter Russellwas an Italy-based polymath, a mine ofspecific and original literary information,and Tim Fitzgeorge-Parker MC was a genial,sometimes obscene anecdotalist. But Ithink with particular fondness of JamesKirkup, the sage of Andorra, author ofcountless obituaries, serious reader andrescuer of the forgotten; and of Leonard Miall,diligent, good-hearted, a lifelong old-schoolBBC man who looked like Alastair Sim.

Both embraced the subtle art of shortbiography late in their careers; both gavegilt to the golden age. Today, alas, the climateis different. The worldwide web, which did somuch to extend the reach of print journalism,is now strangling it. As newspapers cutcosts anywhere they can, obituaries pagesare squeezed and literary editors sacked.The army of expertise in which Kirkup andMiall so unusually marched will never havesuch freedom of exercise again.


n May 1841, Thomas Carlyle, thefounder of the London Library,wrote to his friend Karl AugustVarnhagen von Ense, the Germanwriter whose pretty and vivacious

wife Rahel, a convert from Judaism, ran themost important literary salon in Berlin: ‘Thegenerous Varnhagen need not send me anymore Books, because any good Book, Germanor other has now become attainable here.Some two years ago, after sufficiently

TOMESTEUTONIC

C.J. Schüler explores the literary delights to be found in theLibrary’s German collections

Goethe, 1787, by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein.

HIDDEN CORNERS

Ilamenting and even sometimes execratingsuch a state of matters, it struck me, Couldstnot thou, even thou there, try to mend it?The result, after much confused difficulty, isa democratic Institution called “LondonLibrary”, where all men, on payment of asmall annual sum, can now borrow Books.’

Like many Victorian intellectuals,Carlyle had a strong interest in Germanliterature and philosophy. ‘Close thy Byron;open thy Goethe,’ he recommended in


his satire Sartor Resartus (1833–4), andcorresponded regularly with the poet.Among the treasures in the Library safe area folio of Goethe’s Balladen und Romanzen(1829–30), with Randzeichnungen (vignettes)by Eugen Neureuther, which was a giftfrom Goethe to Carlyle. The book arrived atCarlyle’s house in Craigenputtock in August1831, just as he was leaving for London. ‘A hasty glance thro’ the Contents was allthat could be permitted me,’ he wrote toGoethe. ‘I must leave my Wife to assort andadmire those printed Poems andbeautiful Randzeichnungen, in hermountain loneliness.’

Each page is a lithograph printed in adifferent colour, and the delicate fairy-likefigures and plant tendrils, curling aroundthe text of the poems, exerted a powerfuleffect on Jane Carlyle’s imagination in their‘wild moorland home’ in Dumfries. ‘We satlooking at the randzeichnungen till Midnight(Jemmy & I),’ she wrote to her husband, ‘forI am as wakeful as if I had a Teufelsdreck[the stimulant herb asafoetida] in petto [inmind]. “When I lie down I say when shallI arise and the night be gone.” – and I amon foot again the first in the house – to do –what? To dream.’

From the outset, the collection includedthe works of Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, JeanPaul, Heinrich von Kleist, and both Wilhelmand Alexander von Humboldt. The latterwere among the ‘valuable selection of thebest German authors’, donated by the

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Library’s first patron, Prince Albert, alongwith a cheque for £50. On the Librarycommittee were Christian von Bunsen,Prussian ambassador in London between1842 and 1854, and George Henry Lewes.A lifelong scholar of German literature andphilosophy, Lewes is remembered for hisunconventional relationship with fellowLondon Library member Marian Evans –the novelist George Eliot – which beganwhen they travelled to Weimar and Berlintogether in 1854. His Life of Goetheappeared the following year.

One curiosity of the period, of whichthe Library holds several copies, is MarySchweidler, the Amber Witch, by WilhelmMeinhold. This German pastor claimed thatthe story was a genuine account of aseventeenth-century trial for witchcraft onthe Baltic island of Usedom, ‘printed froman imperfect manuscript’ found in a churchthere. Translated by Lady Duff Gordon andpublished by John Murray in 1844, itsenormous success was scarcely dented whenMeinhold announced that it was a hoaxand that he had written the yarn himself.

In 1921 the collection was enlarged bythe purchase of the theological library

assembled by the Methodist ThomasRobinson Allan (1799–1886), consisting ofseveral thousand sixteenth- to nineteenth-century books in Latin and German, manyof them printed in Germany. Among itstreasures, now kept in the safe, are two earlyGerman Bibles. The first of these, theBiblia dudesch dat erste deell, printed inHalberstadt in 1522, is only the fourth Bibleprinted in Low German. This hefty folio,produced in large Gothic type andillustrated with marvellous woodcuts, is oneof only eight copies known. The other is awork of such historic importance that it’shard to believe members can handle it: afirst edition of Martin Luther’s translation,De Biblie uth der uthlegginge Doct. M.Luthers yn dyth dudesche ulitichuthgesettet mit sundergen underrichtingen,printed in Lübeck in 1533.

The collection contains a couple ofother curiosities relating to the religiousreformer. One is a slim octavo pamphlet,dating from 1518, by Johann Egranus,pastor of St Martin’s church in Zwickau,entitled Apologetica responsio contradogmata … with an introduction by Luther.The other is a bibliographic mystery worthyof Jorge Luis Borges: a vellum-bound copy ofJohn of Damascus’s Ekdosis tes orthodoxoupisteos ..., printed in Verona in 1531. On theverso of the title page is a signature purportingto be that of Martin Luther, but now believedto be a forgery. On the inside front board,an inscription, half-obscured by a laterlabel, indicates that the book was once inthe possession of a seminary in Strasbourg.

Two other stout folios open a fascinatingwindow into the past. Georg Ruxner’ssplendidly illustrated Thurnierbuch (a ‘historyof tournaments in the Holy Roman Empireof the German Nation’) is a quixoticallypedantic celebration of a world of chivalrythat was already vanishing when it wasprinted in 1578 in Frankfurt. JohannDoppelmayr’s Historische Nachricht vonden Nürnbergischen Mathematicis undKünstlern, by contrast, looks forward to anew world of science. Printed in Nurembergin 1730, it contains what is believed to be

‘’

It’s hard to believe members canhandle a first edition of Martin Luther’sBible, printed in Lübeck in 1533

the first ever illustration of a motor-car, athree-wheeler operated by a gent in a wigturning a crank handle.

The Library’s collection of earlytwentieth-century German authors is atreasure trove. Stefan Zweig was hailed inhis lifetime as the author of novellas of greatintensity and psychological acuity; he onlypublished one full-length novel, Ungedulddes Herzens (literally ‘impatience of theheart’, but translated as Beware of Pity),written in London at the time of the Munichcrisis in 1939. I was unaware that he hadfinished another full-length novel until Idiscovered, in the complete German editionof his works on the Library’s shelves, theremarkable Rausch der Verwandlung, whichremained unpublished until 1982. Thisstory of a young woman given a taste of thehigh life by a rich American aunt beforebeing returned to her dreary, circumscribedexistence in post-First World War Austriaheld me totally enthralled. I am glad to say itis now available in a fine English translationby Joel Rotenberg, under the title The PostOffice Girl (2008), published by Sort Of Books.

It was not just Zweig’s heroine whoselife was blighted by war and its aftermath,however, but that of a whole generation ofwriters. On the night of 10 May 1933, after amonth of agitation for ‘Action against theun-German spirit’, Nazi students marched intorchlight parades to organised burnings of

Title page of the Library's 1533 Luther Bible.

An illustration from the Library’s edition ofGeorg Ruxner’s Thurnierbuch.



more than 25,000 ‘nation corrupting’ books,many, but by no means all, by Jewish authors.A century earlier, with terrifying prescience,Heinrich Heine had written: ‘Wo manBücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch amEnde Menschen’ (where books are burnt, inthe end people will be burnt). It was thebeginning of a fatal haemorrhage of Germanculture that increased relentlessly as theNazis tightened their grip on the country.

Joseph Roth, in his powerful essay ‘TheAuto-da-Fé of the Mind’ (1933) invoked thenames of the authors, ‘Jews, half-Jews, andquarter-Jews (to adopt the parlance of theThird Reich)’, whose work was consigned tothe flames by ‘the barbarians of racial theory’:the first German Nobel Laureate Paul Heyse;Hugo von Hofmannsthal; the novelistsAlfred Döblin and Jakob Wassermann; thepoets Rainer Maria Rilke, Karl Wolfskehl,Egon Erwin Kisch and Else Lasker-Schüler …Roth’s list is by no means exhaustive, but it isstill too long to reproduce here, amounting tonothing less than a roll of honour of Germanliterature in the early twentieth century.

All these writers can be found on theshelves of the London Library. Roth believedthat the true spirit of German culture hadgone into exile with him, a sentiment sharedby many émigré writers. Wolfskehl, who leftGermany forever the day after the Reichstagfire, later wrote, ‘Wo ich bin, ist deutscherGeist’ (where I am, the German spirit is).His poetry, essays and letters are wellrepresented in the Library; Margot Reuben,his companion in exile, was a regular visitorto the Library after the war.

For many exiles, the Library, with itsrich German collections and its tradition oftolerance and cosmopolitanism, provided ahaven for that spirit. Interviewed on BBC

television by Leslie Mitchell in June 1937,Zweig said he believed London to be theideal city for a writer, one of the mainreasons being the presence of the LondonLibrary. He had joined in March the previousyear, giving his occupation as ‘author’ andhis address as ‘49 Hallamstreet W1’.

For some, exile spelled literary oblivion.The reputations of Zweig and his compatriotand friend Joseph Roth, both almost unknownin this country 20 years ago, have beenrevived thanks to the efforts of fine translatorssuch as Anthea Bell and Michael Hofmann,and enterprising publishers such as PushkinPress and Granta. Hans Fallada’s last novel,Alone in Berlin, has only just been translatedand published by Penguin, more than 60years after its publication. There are manymore on these shelves who would repay theinterest of translators and publishers:Wassermann – the author of The Enigma ofKaspar Hauser (1908), Leo Perutz, FranzWerfel, Franz Kafka’s friend Max Brod …

Not all disappeared from view, however.Best known for his 1935 novel Auto-da-Fé(originally called Die Blendung, or ‘theblinding’), the Bulgarian-born writer EliasCanetti moved to London from Vienna afterthe Anschluss in March 1938, and became aregular at the Library. Arthur Koestler cameto England in 1940 after being releasedfrom a French internment camp; arrivingwithout papers, he was interned onceagain. By the time of his release, his novelDarkness at Noon (1941) had been publishedto international acclaim.

Another émigré of the Hitler years wasDr Schor, a librarian who had worked at theAustrian National Library. A man of deep andwide-ranging culture, fluent in Italian,Russian and Hebrew, he joined the LondonLibrary staff in 1944, and remained in chargeof German book selection until the 1970s.Under his aegis, the Library acquired not onlystandard works of reference but also thework of the post-war generation of writers inWest Germany, such as Günter Grass, HeinrichBöll and Siegfried Lenz, and the GDR, such asAnna Seghers and Christa Wolf.

His policy has been continued, and thecollections have been enhanced in recentyears by acquisitions from university librariesreducing their collections, especially of EastGerman literature. The Library continues toreflect developments in German literatureand society, with contemporary writerssuch as Daniel Kehlmann, Jenny Erpenbeckand the 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize inLiterature, Herta Müller, all represented.Fittingly, as we have just marked the twentiethanniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall,the most recent acquisitions include DierkHoffmann’s biography of Otto Grotewohl(2009), the first Ministerpräsident of theGDR, and Ines Geipel’s Zensiert,verschwiegen, vergessen (Censored,silenced, forgotten), published in 2009, astudy of women writers in East Germanyfrom 1945 to 1989.

Herta Müller. © Getty Images.

Below, left to right Günter Grass’s Die Blechtrommel(1993 edition), illustration by Grass; Stefan Zweig’sThe Post Office Girl (2008 UK edition).



Phase 2 of the Library’s Development Project concludes this summer. The Librarian, Inez Lynn, reflects on the story so far

Librarianship has always demanded an ability to reconcile oppositesso I was not unduly dismayed to be exhorted by two members ina single week last year, ‘Don’t ever change’ and ‘Modernise or die’.Nevertheless, such forthright expressions of opposing views mayserve to indicate the intellectual and practical challenges thatfaced us in devising how best to develop the Library. Now,several years on from that early planning, as the first two phasesof construction draw to a close, what has been achieved andwhat do the physical changes mean to the Library?

The first impetus for development was the basic need for more

space to accommodate our ever-growing collections. By 1995we had run out of space to shelve books in History and Science &Miscellaneous as well as periodical volumes of all sizes. At first,new additions were crammed in sideways on top of other booksor piled up on the floor, damaging the books and endangeringthe passage of unwary members intent on browsing. Clearly thiscould not go on and eventually we had to move whole sectionsout of their rightful sequence and shelve them wherever therewas room, even if this proved to be several floors away. Thusdid the history of the Second World War come to rest in Fiction.

In 1999, I embarked upon a detailed survey of the collectionsand the available shelving, measuring each and every shelf andits contents, and using spreadsheets to record, and extrapolatefrom, the information gathered. This gave us an accuratesnapshot of the relative size of each subject in the collection;the proportion of small volumes (8vo) to large ones (4to andfolio); and an estimate of the annual growth rate, subject bysubject. Amongst other things this revealed that Art 4to wouldbe full by 2000 and Art 8vo by 2008.

By spending so much time in the stacks I also came to appreciatebetter the physical difficulties experienced by members and booksalike: the books on top shelves which could not be lifted downbecause there was a hot water pipe in the way; the lightingthat failed to illuminate the bottom two shelves of each stack;the large books buckling for want of adequate support on the

Left, inset, bottom leftOvercrowding in Periodicals,1999;struggling to extract a book fromunder a desk,1999; elderly shelvingbows under the strain,1999.Photographs © Inez Lynn.

Bottom right Purpose-designedlecterns in the new Times Room.Photograph © Paul Raftery.

THE ART OF

CHANGE

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shelves; the cramped and uncomfortable reader spaces blockingaccess to the books. It became increasingly clear that it wasn’tjust more space we needed but a radical overhaul of the existingparts of the Library to create conditions more suited to thepreservation of the books and the retention of members.

The acquisition of the building which has become T.S. EliotHouse provided the key with which to unlock the complexpuzzle of Library needs. Work to convert it to Library use –Phase 1 of the development project – was completed in 2007but could only leave us with a single narrow door between thebuildings hidden away in the midst of Fiction 4to like somethingfrom Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It is only now thatfull-sized connections through to the central stack and St James’sSquare building have been opened up on 5 floors that its truevalue to the Library can really be appreciated.

As with many buildings in London, the basement of T.S. EliotHouse is more extensive than the floors above ground and wetook an early decision to unify the basement area across thewhole of the Library’s site by filling it with rolling cases toaccommodate all of the Library’s journal collections. The Librarymaintains subscriptions to some 900 periodicals and learned-society publications and has back-runs for over 2,000. Theseare complemented by the provision of electronic journals(currently 234) and access through JStor to over 500 more fromwithin the Library or from members’ desktops at home orwork. The new arrangement means that volumes which havebeen scattered confusingly over seven floors can be reunited,and the separate Periodicals and Old Periodicals sectionsrestored to a single A–Z sequence, making the extraordinaryriches of our journals much easier to navigate.

At the heart of the basement lie two new reading rooms: theLightwell and the new Times Room. The Times Room was thefirst of the new spaces to be completed, with purpose-designedrolling-cases and lecterns to support the huge bound volumesof The Times. Although we can now also offer members


SNAPSHOT OF COLLECTION SIZES IN 2000Subject Size (m) Annual growth (m) Full by date

Literature – 8vo 3,594 49.0 2009Literature – 4to 110 1.6 2016

History – 8vo 3,148 35.6 1995History – 4to 663 4.4 2016

Biography – 8vo 2,264 30.0 2021 Biography - 4to 42.6 0.9 2005

Science – 8vo 1,934 22.0 1994Science – 4to 216 4.1 2000

Fiction – 8vo 1,368 13.7 2027Fiction – 4to 61 4.9 1998

Religion – 8vo 1,044 9.3 2012Religion – 4to 102 0.5 2025

Topography – 8vo 1,036 6.9 2031Topography – 4to 287 3.4 2018

Bibliography – 8vo 354 6.9 2028Bibliography – 4to 83 1.9 2002

Philosophy – 8vo 221 5.4 2021Philosophy – 4to 8 0.3 2005

The Lightwell Reading Room. Photograph © Paul Raftery.



electronic access to this material, the ability to see the laid-outpage as it was on publication and discover what else washappening in the world at the same time still proves invaluable,as evidenced by the number of volumes awaiting reshelving atthe end of each day. The room has been furnished with newequipment for reading microfilm and printing or downloadingto computer from it. This will be of real benefit to those wishingto consult and print from our run of the Illustrated London News(1843–1968) and the Independent (1986–92), for example, aswell as texts acquired on microfilm through Inter-Library Loan.The large layout table at the centre of the room has been designedto accommodate the 59 massive volumes of the Baddeley Prints,a collection of some 50,000 engraved portraits and viewspresented to us in 1922 by J.F. Baddeley in memory of his mother,Mrs Fraser Baddeley.

Opening up the Lightwell between the St James’s Squarebuilding and the back stacks has not only brought natural lightto the basement but provided an additional reading room withten fully equipped reader spaces at the heart of the Periodicalscollections. Here, as elsewhere, the new desks are generouslysized and provide reading lamps, power-points for laptops, andwireless internet access. At ground level the space feels pleasinglyhidden and enclosed but its lofty glass ceiling gives a sense ofabundant light and air as well.

Providing more space for readers was a second key element inour design brief as we have seen the number of members wishingto read and work on the premises rather than taking books homeincrease significantly over the last five to ten years. Most membersare astonished to learn that when the Library was first founded

there was no Reading Room at all; in fact there was initially somedebate as to whether such a facility had any place in the Libraryas conceived by its founders. Then, for over a hundred years, asingle, gracious Reading Room on the first floor proved sufficient;but the advent of computers, and an increasingly sharp dividebetween those who depend on laptops and those who find thetapping of keys unendurable, highlighted the need for morereader spaces overall.

To this end, Phase 2 of the development project sees thededication of the whole of the first floor of the St James’sbuilding to reading areas with the conversion of the Prevost Room,once the Library’s Committee Room, to that purpose. It is alovely room, with its Adam fireplace and elegant library furnitureand it is a real delight to be able to open it to all members.Like the North Bay Reading Room, it is equipped for laptop use,which means that the main Reading Room can once more belargely left to the gentle scratch of pen on paper.

Of course, some members like to hide away in the stacks whenwriting, soaking up inspiration from the surrounding books awayfrom the distracting thoughts of others, so, wherever alterationsto the building have been made, more of these book caveshave been created for members to find and make their own.

Where once the Art Room marked the furthest boundary ofthe Library to the north, it is now a gateway to T.S. Eliot House,which allows the rapidly growing art history collections (21m ayear) to spill out into new shelving in that building. Art books, infact, present some particular challenges: they tend to be bigger –it is one of the few subjects where more quarto-sized books areadded than octavo – and heavier. The specially commissionedshelving therefore had to be built and tested to withstand aload of up to 100kg per metre. Because the books are big andheavy, browsing at the shelf is both more necessary and moredifficult, and so the room has been carefully designed to makethis easier. At gallery level the central balustrade provides anideal place to open and examine books before deciding whetherto borrow them, and on the ground floor we have built in pull-outshelves at intervals for this purpose. And for those who wish tostay longer, there are four new reader desks.



Work on the Issue Hall has involved a careful combination ofrestoration and innovation. When completed in early summer,the hall will once more have matching galleries on each side andabundant daylight from windows at either end, regainingsomething of the stately look apparent in photographs from theearly twentieth century. The whole area will be dedicated tomember services and facilities, including much-needed cloakroomspace under the gallery in the north bay with extensive lockerprovision opposite. This north bay of the Issue Hall fronts onMason’s Yard and for the first time members will have the optionof entering the Library from this side – particularly convenientfor cyclists as the Library’s new bike store is there. This entrancewill also provide wheelchair access to the Library for the firsttime, with a platform lift to negotiate the change in level fromentry to Issue Hall. This is a huge step forward for the Libraryand, combined with the newly enlarged central lift, means thatwheelchair users will be able to reach all of the Reading Rooms,the Art Room, Times Room and T.S. Eliot House as well as thenew toilet facilities and bookstacks in the basement.

At the St James’s Square entrance a new Reception deskopposite the inner door will provide a more welcoming approachfor members and visitors alike, enabling prospective membersto get a feel for the Library. Wicket gates will provide thenecessary security and, beyond them, reader-services countersto left and right. The reorganisation of day-to-day tasks whichthis new arrangement will allow has long been awaited; it willimprove our ability to continue delivering the high quality ofservice upon which members rely, and to adapt it to changingneeds. Beyond the service counters, the space opens out intothe Catalogue Hall, where both online and printed cataloguesare available along with a bigger ‘New Books’ display andimproved copying and scanning facilities. Here too will be foundthe new Library map and building directory, making sense ofthe complex interconnections of stack and reader spaces in theenlarged building. Views down into the Lightwell and across itto the book stacks not only help with orientation but also enticeone further into the friendly labyrinth of books and ideas.

As this phase of building work comes to an end, I have a

Far left, middle, left Prevost ReadingRoom; Art Room Gallery; the newCentral Stair with the portrait of Mrs Valerie Eliot by Emma Sergeant.Photographs © Paul Raftery.

Below Browsing in the Art Room (groundfloor). Photograph © Paul Raftery.

growing sense of excitement and anticipation but this is tingedwith nervousness. Will members like what we have done? Will itwork as we planned? Perhaps the most important thing is thatwe have designed-in long-term flexibility; for the art of changeis to ensure that the essence of the Library remains the same byconstantly making subtle adjustments to the services, facilities andenvironment. In this sense, the greatest testament to successwould be for members in a few years’ time to feel as convincedas many are now that the building has always been just as it is.What matters is to continue to meet and even exceed expectations.So perhaps both members were right after all when they deliveredtheir contrasting views to me with such passion last summer.



Eric Parry: You are well known for reworking and reorderingbuildings like the Royal Court Theatre, the Young Vic and others.Do you have a particular attitude to reusing old fabric?Graham Haworth: Fabric is as much to do with the character ofan institution as the architecture that it inhabits. Our approachto begin with tends to be about investigating the institutionand then it becomes archaeological, about the architecture,seeing where they overlap and how the two work together.

There seem to me to be three general approaches to reusingold fabric. One is that you don’t do anything new and you justdo a faithful restoration of what’s there. I think an existingbuilding has to be exceptional and to warrant very littleprogrammatic change for this to be successful – think St Paul’sor Westminster Abbey. The other two require more modificationand you either produce a very new contemporary interventionthat contrasts strongly with the existing – I think to somedegree that the Sackler extension at the Royal Academy fitsinto that category – or you tap into the DNA of the existingand let it inform the character of the new intervention – CarloScarpa and his work at Castelvecchio in Verona is an exampleof this. Our approach generally tends to fall into this lastcategory and tries to find a working language that fits thecharacter of both the building and the institution. EP: When you take a project like this that’s woven into thefabric of London, I might have expected you also to mentionpeople like John Soane. Here you’ve got a corner of one ofLondon’s finest squares, a sort of keyhole into an urban block,and it seems to me that there is an urban dimension to theproject as well.GH: There is a very London thing where the interior of theurban block is quite mysterious and hidden from the street,existing behind and often unrelated to a much more publicfrontage. A whole world of lightwells and lean-tos and varioussorts of less formal structures. The Library has a formalresponse to the Square although it’s only in the façade – thefrontage doesn’t actually give too much away about whatunfolds within. Soane is a good reference: at Lincoln's InnFields it’s the same sort of aggregative interior space that’s

going from the street frontage with formal entry spaces androoms that look to the Square, becoming much more secretiveand labyrinthine to the rear. And I think this is very similar towhat happens at the Library, a layering of the interior ofdifferent periods and architecture.EP: What influences have you found within the Library as itstands and how might members see those influences reflectedin the end product?GH: The pragmatism of the Library's building has been a biginfluence on the solutions we proposed. In some ways you couldsay it was quite brutal: the original Georgian house which theLibrary first rented and then bought was demolished in 1896 tomake way for a quite radical steel-frame structure, with anamazingly bold bookstack made from metal frames with opengrilled floors. It is easy to understand the Library's structure andhow components work. We've picked up on that directness

THE BEAUTY OF

THE BUILDINGGraham Haworth talks to fellow architect Eric Parry about how his team has respondedto the Library’s fabric, history and complexity

PROFESSIONAL TEAM

Architects: Haworth TompkinsCost Consultants: Gardiner & TheobaldConstruction Management: Mace GroupStructural Engineers: Price & MyersMechanical & Electrical Engineers: Max Fordham

The upper lightwell offers glimpses through to older spaces. Photograph © Paul Raftery.



and used materials like brass, waxed steel, nickel and timber,materials that patinate and age gracefully over time, and haveavoided overtly new materials like plastic or anodised aluminium.

We have tried to understand the complexity of the Library'sspaces as an agglomeration of individual spaces that abutone another. The circulation routes around the building arenotoriously complex, mainly because of all the half-levelmezzanines in the stacks, but in a way that’s part of the beautyof the building. We didn’t want to bring in a new order ofarchitecture that simplified that too much. We aimed to 'de-silt'the building slightly, making it easier and more intuitive to getaround when searching for books, but to retain the complexity,so you could still get lost if you were not paying attention. Itwould have been a real loss, I think, if we had sanitised thatfeeling, that character, that unique atmosphere too much. EP: I was very struck by the fact that there was no sign of acrane or anything like that on the site as we walked round. I suppose the great thing about metal structures is that they canbe broken down into small components and then assembled. Sothere is a sense of prefabricating units of a manageable sizeoffsite and then making something bigger from them, ratherlike a book itself.GH: Yes, the excavation and demolition have been almostmedieval, with teams of workers manhandling bags of rubbleout through the building and bringing steel beams in throughthe smallest aperture imaginable. The fact that we didn’t havethe luxury of extensive site access has given the project a veryspecific quality; there are no large prefabricated elements thatcould be seen to be inhuman or monumental. Historically, theprevious buildings were constructed in the same way so I supposeunconsciously we've generated an aesthetic similar to that ofthe 1890s, 1920s and 1930s buildings.EP: It seems to me there’s a sort of inherent modesty in thatwhich is extremely interesting. It allows for a more complexresonance with the other parts and yet, at the end of it, I don’tthink it’s a modest project. I think when it’s all put together it’sgoing to be really rather radical. GH: It’s an accumulation of spaces but defined by an overallvision of how the whole thing fits together. If we didn’t havean overview of what we were making with these quitedisparate parts, they might not coalesce into a whole. Theuse of models and 3D drawing techniques helped us to piecethe spaces together.EP: I noticed that the Library’s President, Tom Stoppard, hasbeen particularly critical about contemporary architecture in anumber of instances. How is your relationship? Is the theatre acommon bond and is there a kind of theatricality in the projectthat he and others can appreciate?GH: Well, he loves the Library and has been very involved inthe project and raising funds for it from the very beginning.He talks about how architects should understand metaphysics,and I suppose examining the nature of the reality of theLibrary is what we have been doing. I think he also understandsthat because we design theatres as well, we do understand thecomplexity of settings, scenes and atmospheres. Where somearchitects are probably only interested in their own architecturalagenda and vision, we tend to be a lot more discursive.EP: Have you done your own stage settings?

GH: No, just the buildings; we understand the architecturalboundary! Though on this project we have collaborated withTurner Prize-winning artist Martin Creed to create a veryspecific setting for each of the loos.EP: You also mentioned the idea of the new Members’ Entrancefrom Mason’s Yard being like a stage door. What do you meanby that?GH: In theatres there is always a formal entrance that theaudience goes through which is to do with a sense of arrival,going to the bar, getting a drink and the anticipation of what’sto come. In parallel with that there is also a back or side doorwhere the actors and directors go in, which is much more lowkey, more subtle. So it’s this idea of having two ways into thebuilding, one formal and one informal, almost secretive. Therewas an opportunity at the Library to keep the formal entranceon St James’s Square and link that with an entrance fromMason’s Yard which is much more downplayed, much morelike a stage door. It’s a members’ entrance for people whoknow where they are going. I like the idea of the two flowsof people accessing the same space from totally differenturban experiences – St James's Square and Mason’s Yard.EP: What about the lightwell? It seems to be a sort of palimpsestof things that have happened to the building since its firststage in the 1890s.

THE ART OF CHANGE



understand it as another step in the history of the Library.EP: What about reader spaces? Carlyle was notoriously fussyabout his reading environment. GH: At the end of the project there will be a total of 150 readerspaces. There were originally 76, so we are almost doublingthe number. The reader spaces that we have created fall intotwo types: formal and informal. There were 45 formal onesarranged in groups within specific reading rooms and thiswill be increased by a further 49. This current phase ofconstruction creates three new reading rooms: the PrevostRoom (which used to be a committee room), the Lightwelland the remodelled Art Room. In a later phase the new rooftopReading Room will be located above the main entrance onSt James's Square. These rooms provide a variety of differentreading environments: the Lightwell is introspective, whereasthe rooftop Reading Room will have its own members’lounge and roof terrace with views out over St James's Squareto Westminster.

The other type of reading space is informal, usually located inthe book stack areas, sometimes with natural light and a view,sometimes not. There were 31 of those spaces around thebuilding before and we are increasing those by a further 25.These spaces are profoundly 'London Library': usually hiddenaway within the book stacks, individual desks and chairs thatnobody can easily find or nobody initially knows are there.

Phase 2 is coming to an end – is the project finished?

No! Thanks to the remarkable generosity of the many donors

who have contributed to our Development Appeal we have

come a long way towards equipping the Library for the 21st

century, but there are still two main areas of work to accomplish.

The first of these is the refurbishment of both the 1890s

stacks and the 1920s stacks at the rear of the building, and the

construction of three extra floors of book stacks to fill the gap

between them. This will give us the necessary storage for the

next generation and some very attractive reader spaces as well.

It is also vital for the preservation of the collections into the

future. These stacks have not been thoroughly overhauled in

almost a hundred years and it is here that the books are at

greatest risk from ill-placed water pipes, overheating and lack of

ventilation; browsing is most difficult here too because so many

light-fittings are beyond repair and reader desks are few. The work

required to put all this right is far greater than could ever be

encompassed by routine maintenance.

The final area of work involves the creation of an additional

‘21st-Century’ Reading Room on the 6th floor, taking advantage of

wonderful views over London to Westminster and beyond.

Immediately below it will be a small members’ room with a large

roof terrace, providing an appropriate place for members to

relax and socialise if they wish. These two new facilities should

also add significantly to the Library’s ability to generate income,

as they will open up the possibility of hiring out space for talks

and receptions outside of opening hours. Gentle refurbishment

of the 1st-floor Reading Room and an overhaul of the stacks

above will complete the work.

The successful completion of Phases 1 and 2 has made us even

more committed to delivering the full project as originally conceived.

Phase 1 – Purchase & fit-out of T.S. Eliot House Completed

Phase 2 – Art Room, Times Room, Lightwell, Basement,

links to T.S.Eliot House Completed

Phase 3 – New Courtyard Stacks and refurbishment of

1890s stacks c£ 5m

Phase 4 – 21st-Century Reading Room, Members’ Room &

Terrace, refurbishment of 1st-floor Reading Room

and stacks above c£ 7m

Our most urgent need is now to fund Phase 3. Please do contact

the Development Office if you are able to help either personally

or by making suggestions of individuals, trusts or foundations to

whom an approach might be made (020 7766 4716; or email

[email protected]).

FUNDRAISING

GH: Yes. Originally the lightwell was predominantly open. It probably acted as a very simple device to demarcate thetransition from the house at the front to the stacks at the back.Over time it was filled in and used for all sorts of things, whichmeant you couldn’t see through it and you couldn’t orientateyour way around it. By opening it up we’ve established a veryclear point of orientation in the middle of the building. It has aspecific new function at its base as the reading room for thePeriodical collections, and it gives some interesting crossviews from the main member spaces through to the bookstacks beyond.

This restores its functionality, but we felt there was anopportunity to emphasise the idea of the Library changing overtime so we deliberately kept what we call the 'scar tissue', themarks of the previous interventions in the lightwell. We justpatched them in so members can trace the outline of whatused to be in there.

We've very deliberately kept the original outdoor spacelegible; the roof is very simple so you can see over it from themain Reading Room, but it’s quite pragmatic, again made inthe way we alluded to earlier of components of quite smallsize made into a larger whole. The perforated bronze panellingat low level provides a much more room-like feel at the base,but we still want it to be read as the old lightwell that theVictorians constructed, given a new use, and hopefully people


MEMBERS’ NEWSTRUSTEE VOLUNTEERSTHE LIBRARY’S CHAIRMAN, BILL EMMOTT, ENCOURAGES MEMBERS TOCONSIDER THE CHALLENGES AND PLEASURES OF BEING A TRUSTEE

Roughly one year ago, to my delight but also some surprise, Ifound myself at my first trustees’ meeting at the Library, notjust completely new to being a Library trustee but also havingto run the meeting as Chairman. So if any members feelworried about what it might be like suddenly to have to speakup as a new trustee, in front of 14 colleagues who seem moreexperienced and knowledgeable than you are, spare a thoughtfor me. But don’t spare too many, for it was actually a strikinglypleasant and interesting experience.

What I found, to my relief, was that not only are my 14colleagues very capable, committed and well-informed, but theyalso represent a strikingly wide range of interests, personalitiesand backgrounds. There are professional writers andschoolteachers, there are financial people and civil servants,people with experience of other charities, architects, lawyersand publishers, and of course in my case a journalist. The agesrange broadly, and we have a good mixture of women andmen. All of which is just as it should be, for the committee oftrustees needs both to provide a good representation of theLibrary’s membership and to provide the skills and expertisenecessary for us properly to fulfill our governance obligationsunder charity law and our own Royal Charter.

One aspect of the committee which I found reassuring wasthat as well as a thorough and fair selection procedure it hasclear rules about rotation, in order to avoid complacency or‘group-think’. This is both reassuring and faintly alarming, asno sooner have I got to know some fellow trustees but theirfour-year term has come to an end and it is time to replacethem. That is exactly where we are now: two trustees retire inNovember under the rotation rules, which is why we are againadvertising for new volunteers.

I do hope that many members will seriously consider puttingthemselves forward. As Chairman, I am trying to make ourmeetings as efficient as possible while also being enjoyable andhaving a very open discussion. The great benefit of having abody of trustees is that the Library can get a broad discussiongoing on the most important topics, allowing everyone to havetheir say but also enabling new ideas to be sparked off. It is, inother words, an extremely collegiate body.

Since taking over as Chairman last year, I have made a fewchanges in order to make sure that we focus adequately on thegovernance tasks expected of us by the Charity Commissionand under the law. So there is now a new ‘risk and governancecommittee’, led by our Vice-Chair, Graeme Cottam, and a newremuneration committee, responsible for overseeing the Librarian’spay and terms as well as the overall salary structure of the

Library, which I chair. Topics outside the trustees’ governanceremit, such as maintaining the collections, are delegated to theLibrarian and her staff, but she is using trustees for such purposeson more informal advisory groups.

Always, there are big issues to be considered as well assmaller ones. We have to ensure that membership marketing isheading in the right direction, that the Library’s finances aresound and that it continues to be able to raise money for ourcapital projects such as the building, and that any legal or otherrisks are being properly handled. But also we have to think ahead,about what it will mean to be a Library in this increasinglydigital age. It is important stuff, but also fascinating and oftengood fun.


WANTED:TRUSTEE VOLUNTEERSCould you

• Think strategically about the long-term interests of the Library? • Listen to others’ views and contribute your own to help

reach decisions collectively?• Collaborate effectively with the Library’s professional staff?• Promote the Library and speak up for it at critical moments?

If so, why not offer your time, energy and expertise to the Libraryas a trustee? The trustees are responsible for the long-term well-being and effectiveness of the Library and besides thinking aboutservices and facilities must ensure that the Library safeguards itsassets, meets its financial obligations and functions within the legalrequirements of a registered charity.

Applications for trustee positions falling vacant in autumn 2010are now open and this year members able to offer the followingare especially keenly sought:

• Professional involvement in the world of books and writing• Financial acumen, e.g. a background in financial management,

investment or accountancy• Membership marketing or research experience

A brief guide explaining the responsibilities and commitments involved and full details of how to apply is available to downloadfrom the Vacancies section of the Library’s website; it can also besent to you by post on request to Sarah Farthing on 020 7766 4712or by email to [email protected].

FOR CONSIDERATION THIS YEAR PLEASE SUBMIT APPLICATIONSFOR TRUSTEESHIP NO LATER THAN 7 MAY 2010

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CAN YOU HELPSUPPORT ANOTHERLIBRARY MEMBER?

Emma Sergeant in her studio with the portrait of Mrs Valerie Eliot.

Since October 2009, the Library has been trialling a newprogramme where one Library member sponsors another.

Assistance with membership fees is already provided toLibrary members aged 16 to 24, who currently pay a specialreduced rate of £200. Additionally, members of any agewho are unable to meet the full membership cost may beeligible for Carlyle Membership from the London LibraryTrust. Since the introduction of the Young Person’sMembership scheme we have seen a 100% increase inyounger members, and the London Library Trust currentlysupports 340 Library members.

The idea of members directly supporting other memberswas initially suggested to the Library by Dr Julian Pattison,who wondered if there might be individuals willing to assistthose who struggle with their annual subscription. It wasagreed that sponsorship should be granted on the basis ofthe sponsor being informed about his or her beneficiary andtheir use of the Library’s resources, perhaps through twice-yearlyemails. Dr Pattison kindly made a donation and has helped ustry out the scheme, which we would now like to extend.

We would be delighted to hear from any members who areinterested in supporting a fellow member of the Library in this way. Please contact Fiona Smith-Cutting on 020 7766 4704([email protected]) for more information.

STAIRCASE ART:A BENEFACTOR ANDOUR FOUNDERMembers who have visited the Library recently may have seenthe beautiful oil portrait of Library benefactor and Vice-President,Mrs Valerie Eliot, now gracing the new staircase between theCatalogue Hall and the Reading Room lobby.

The portrait was generously donated by internationallyrenowned artist Emma Sergeant, supported by an equallygenerous matching donation from The Underwood Trust.

It will be joined in the near future by J.E. Boehm’s bust ofThomas Carlyle, which will be displayed in the adjacent niche.The bust, formerly a familiar feature in the Art Room, has beenat the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street duringPhase 2 building work, appearing in an exhibition celebratingthe 150th anniversary of the first publication, in serial form, ofA Tale of Two Cities.

PHASE 2 CELEBRATIONS – your invitation

Your invitation to a special members’ tour of the Library,

celebrating the end of Phase 2, is included as an insert in this

issue of the magazine. If you did not receive an invitation with

your magazine, please contact Helen Maskell, on 020 7766 4716

([email protected]).

In an exciting development for the Library, this year’sAnnual Lecture by Sir Max Hastings will be held at thedelightful Hay Festival in Wales, giving all Library members– both town and country – the opportunity to attend thelecture in a wonderfully literary setting.

For more details and information on how to book yourtickets, see p.36.

THE LONDON LIBRARYANNUAL LECTURE 2010

MEMBERS’ NEWS


THE HAY FESTIVAL, 27 May–6 June 2010


THE LONDON LIBRARY ANNUAL LECTURE 2010at the Hay Festival

Since its foundation in 1987, the Hay Festival has grown tobecome one of the most recognisable international arts andcultural brands, with Hay events occurring throughout theyear across the world, whilst the original annual Hay Festivalon the Welsh–English border now features more than 500events across 10 days.

As the world’s leading literary festival, Hay’s highlights overmore than two decades are innumerable. Festival founderPeter Florence cites one of his favourites to be the visit of apoetic hero: ‘We have been amazingly fortunate. One time,Ted Hughes read Birthday Letters, his poetry collection aboutSylvia Plath, during a thunderstorm. It was so appropriate tohave this elemental battle going on as a backdrop.’ EdwardSaïd performed his final public lecture at Hay, when 1,300people stood on their chairs and cheered his ‘remarkablelast words’; and, following a sell-out talk, Bill Clinton led anall-night poker session in 2001, during which he coined thememorable expression that has served as a Festival leitmotif

to this day, namely that Hay ‘is a Woodstock for the mind’. Aside from the extraordinary moments and exceptional

talent that it showcases, the Hay Festival has proved responsiblefor the discovery and championing of new writers. Manyauthors who have since become household names made theirfirst major public debuts at Hay: Arundhati Roy, DBC Pierreand Yann Martel to name but a few. ‘Audiences found themhere and spread the word,’ notes Florence.

Today, Hay is more than just a literary festival. Some of theworld’s leading entertainers have appeared here, with musicalvisitors including Sting, Van Morrison and Sir Paul McCartney;talks from artists such as Antony Gormley; and comediansincluding Dylan Moran and Welsh hero, Rob Brydon. In a bidto make arts and culture accessible to all, during the mainSummer Festival, Hay offers ‘Hay Fever’, a dedicated programmeof 100 events for children and families.

For the latest information about the 2010 Festival, whichtakes place from 27 May to 6 June, visit hayfestival.com.

Also appearing as part of Hay’s schedule will be the Library’sPresident, Sir Tom Stoppard, and Library staff will be manninga stand throughout the Festival where visitors can come andlearn more about the benefits of membership. Please drop byand say hello!

As usual, an edited version of the Annual Lecture will appearin the autumn issue of the magazine, allowing all members toshare in this special event.

Sir Max Hastings.

Scene at the 2009 Hay Festival.

Sir Tom Stoppard.

An allocation of tickets for Sir Max’s lecture, on Saturday 5 June at 4pm, has been put aside for Library members; to buya ticket, call the Festival’s booking line on 01497 822629and quote your membership number, bearing in mind thattickets do sell quickly.

As some of you will already have seen announced on theLibrary’s website, the 2010 Annual Lecture – Sir Max Hastings,speaking about his research on Winston Churchill – will takeplace at the Hay Festival.

With its impeccable literary credentials and immense popularity –around 80,000 visitors attend each year – partnering with theHay Festival offers the Library an opportunity to reach potentialnew members and to reinforce our position at the heart of Britishcultural life. Many of our current members are already Hayregulars, and with one-third of the Library’s membership livingoutside London, it is a chance to bring the Annual Lecture to afresh setting and an even wider audience. © Amie Stamp



THIS SEASON’S CULTURAL EVENTS EMILY PIERCE

MARCH

The exhibition Paul Nash: The Elementsat Dulwich Picture Gallery (to 9 May,dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk), curated byDavid Fraser Jenkins,* brings togetheraround 60 of the modern British artist’spaintings and watercolours. The paintingsinclude his outstanding work as a warartist in both world wars.

Participants at the 2010 Sunday TimesOxford Literary Festival (20–28 March,oxfordliteraryfestival.com) include JohnLe Carré, Sebastian Faulks,* WilliamFiennes,* Edward Hollis, Andrew Martin,*Frances Spalding* and D.J. Taylor.*

APRILAt the Cambridge Wordfest (9–11 April,cambridgewordfest.co.uk), Hilary Mantel,Philip Pullman* and Don Paterson areamong the authors participating.

The Slovo: Words in Action (18–25 April,academia-rossica.org) festival featuresmajor Russian writers translated andreinterpreted by British poets and writers.

David Crystal will discuss his Little Book ofLanguage at Foyles Bookshop (14 April).Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator of HistoricRoyal Palaces, will also talk about herSecret History of Kensington Palace(27 May, tickets at foyles.co.uk/events).

Another Country: London Painters inDialogue with Modern Italian Art (28April–20 June, estorickcollection.com) isan exhibition dedicated to the response often London-based painters (Tony Bevan,Arturo di Stefano, Luke Elwes, Tim Hyman,Andrzej Jackowski, Merlin James, GlenysJohnson, Alex Lowery, Lino Mannocci andThomas Newbolt) to the work of a selectionof modern Italian artists.

The London Original Print Fair (29 April–3 May, londonprintfair.com), at the Royal

RECENT LITERARY AWARDSCongratulations to the Library memberswho were nominated for or have wonliterary awards since December 2009

William Fiennes, The Music Room,nominated for the 2009 Costa BiographyAwardSimon Gray, Coda, nominatedposthumously for the 2009 CostaBiography AwardMary Hoffman, Troubadour, nominatedfor the Costa Children’s AwardClive James, Angels Over Elsinore:Collected Verse 2003–2008, nominatedfor the 2010 Costa Poetry AwardPatrick Ness, The Ask and the Answer,

winner of the 2009 Costa Children’s AwardChristopher Reid, A Scattering, winnerof the 2009 Costa Book of the Year andthe 2009 Costa Poetry Award; nominatedfor the 2009 T.S. Eliot PrizeFrederick Taylor, Le Mur de Berlin(published in the UK as The Berlin Wall),awarded the 2009 Prix Grand Témoinde la France Mutualliste, for a work of20th-century history

The magazine would welcome anyinformation from members who havewon or been nominated for prizes, tobe included in future issues.Please send details to:[email protected]

Academy, will feature a loan exhibition,Out of the Loop, a personal selection ofprints from the British Museum Collection,curated by Antony Griffiths, retiring Keeperof Prints and Drawings. He will be giving atalk and tour of the exhibition (3 May,noon, free entrance with Fair ticket).

Also at the London Original Print Fair, thebook Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolioswill be available in a special edition of 50(£2,000), containing 2 original prints signedand numbered by the artist and notreleased until now (book launch at the Fair,29 April, 6–8pm, osbornesamuel.com,books also available at the gallery, tel.020 7493 7939, see advert on p.8).

MAYThe Charleston Festival features CarolAnn Duffy, Anne Enright and Zadie Smith(21–30 May, charleston.org.uk).

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre (openairtheatre.com) includes The Comedy of Errors,Macbeth and Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

For the Hay Festival (27 May–6 June,hayfestival.com), see p.36.

* current Library member

Paul Nash, Pillar and Moon, 1932–42. © Tate,London, 2009.

Henry Moore’s Composition for a Poem by Herbert Read,c.1946, etching and aquatint. One of the two prints inthe deluxe edition of Henry Moore: Prints and Portfolios(see Osborne Samuel Gallery entry in April)

DIARY

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