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Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library: Literary manuscripts and printed books

Charlotte Bronte manuscript for Jane EyrePlease note: The Beowulf Manuscript will be off exhibition on 15 April 2013 for one day only.

Items listed on this page are normally on display in the Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library at St Pancras, London.

You can find out more about selected items online. You can also check opening times and get an overview of what the gallery contains.

  • The Vision of Piers Plowman. 14th century
    Cotton Vespasian B XVI ff. 62v - 63
  • The Beowulf Manuscript. England 11th century
    Cotton Vitellius A.XV  ff 168v-169
  • Philip Sidney, Arcadia. 1581
    Add. MS 38892 ff. 69v - 70
  • Shirburn Ballads. Eighty Elizabethan & Jacobean ballads, c. 1600 - 1616
    Add. MS 82932 ff. 187v - 188
  • Believe as you List', by Philip Massinger (1583-1640)
    Egerton 2828
  • Commonplace Book of John Milton. 1630 - 1650
    Add. MS 36354 ff. 92v - 93
  • Dryden - The Fall of Angels. Circa 1670
    Add. MS 37158 ff. 11v - 12
  • Samuel Johnson, Tour of North Wales, 1774
    Add. MS 12070 ff. 10v - 11
  • Jane Austen, Third volume of her notebook. 1792
    Add. MS 65381(ff. 16v - 17)
  • Jane Austen's writing desk
    Loan 118
  • Wordsworth - Poem of Childhood (1842)
    Ashley 2265
  • Robert Browning - The Ring and the Book
    Add. MS 43485 f. 1
  • Oscar Wilde - Ballad of Reading Gaol. 1897
    Add. MS 81634
  • Joseph Conrad - Lord Jim, c. 1899
    Ashley A 456 folio 8 (single folio)
  • Isaac Rosenberg - letter to Laurence Binyon and poem 'In the Trenches' 1916.
    Loan 103/77
  • Edward Lear manuscript - nonsense alphabet
    Add. MS 47462 ff. 10v - 11
  • Beryl Bainbridge. Notebook
    Add. MS 83750 ff. 3v - 4
  • Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis', poetry notebook. Wendy Cope
    Deposit 10668
  • Angela Carter, "Nights at the Circus". Published 1984
    Deposit 10370 (first page)

William Shakespeare

  • Shakespeare: First Folio, open at the first page of Henry IV part 1
    C.21.e.16
  • King Henry IV Part 1, 1598
    C.34.k.5*
  • Samuel Daniel, a verse epic of the Wars of the Roses. 1595
    C.34.h.4
  • William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor. London, 1630
    C.34.k.28
  • The Works of Mr William Shakespeare. London 1709, open at the illustration of Falstaff
    81.g.18