Art
Satisfy Your Wanderlust With Captivating Globes From the 17th and 18th Centuries
The British Library uploaded 3-D scans of its collection of celestial and terrestrial globes.
British Library
Art
Traces of Human Folly in the Alpine Landscapes that Inspired Frankenstein
British photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews explored the Alps where Mary Shelley imagined Frankenstein, and the nuclear bunkers there that recall a modern dark side to scientific progress.
Art
From Birch-Bark Shoes to Propaganda Posters, Surveying Relics from the Russian Revolution
The British Library exhibition features a wide variety of media, but what’s notably lacking is a sense of the upheaval of the time.
Books
A Book Highlights the Oddities of the Woodcut World
These prints helped render the world for mass consumption.
Books
Watch the British Library Digitize One of the World's Largest Books
The 1660 Klencke Atlas is taller than most people, and now its rare maps are easily accessible online.
News
Peruse 1,000-Year-Old Medical Remedies, from Ox Bile to Mandrake Root
The British Library owns the only extant illustrated Old English herbal, and it recently digitized the entire manuscript.
Books
The Biodiversity of the World Captured in Five Centuries of Animal Art
Charlotte Sleigh's book The Paper Zoo explores 500 years of scientific animal illustration as seen in the collections of the British Library.
Art
How a Magician Preserved the Ephemera of Victorian Entertainment
The British Library exhibits selections from its archive on Victorian entertainment, all collected by the 19th-century magician Evanion.
News
Researchers Restore First Recording of Computer Music, Made in Alan Turing’s Lab
The 1951 recording of three songs played on Turing's computer has been restored to its intended sound.
News
Crimes of the Art
On this week’s art crime blotter: a punk rocker righted the gender imbalance in an exhibition on the genre's history, two Monets were seized from a Malaysian businessman accused of fraud, and a court ordered artist Orlan to pay Lady Gaga $22,000.
News
British Library Digitizes One of the World’s Oldest Qur'an Manuscripts
One of the world's oldest Qur'an manuscripts is now online, digitized in full by the British Library. The text dates from the 8th century — making it the oldest of its kind in the institution's collection.
In Brief
Shakespeare's Only Handwritten Manuscript Contains a Message of Empathy for Migrants
Aside from a few signatures, only one example of William Shakespeare's handwriting survives, a speech from around 1600 that imagines Sir Thomas More addressing the rage of an anti-migrant crowd in England.