Home to some of the greatest literary works on the planet, including Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks and the first complete copy of the New Testament, plus two copies of the Magna Carta and the world's first block-printed book, The Diamond Sutra, dating to 868 CE, the British Library (bl.uk) is a wondrous time capsule of text.
One-hour tours take visitors behind the scenes to learn about the building’s most significant books, manuscripts, stamps, prints and drawings, while building tours focus on the construction of this architectural wonder – it's one of the two largest libraries on Earth (along with the Library of Congress in Washington, DC), completed in 1998 and housing 14 million books.
Anyone aged 18 or over can apply for a free Reader Pass to use the reading rooms, but there are plenty of exhibition spaces, including the free Sir John Ritblat Gallery, containing original legendary works such as Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, Shakespeare's First Folio (1623), Jane Austen's History of England, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures Under Ground and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, among others.
