Library

As we move to Smithfield, the Library will be closed to the public for research till further notice. But our online catalogue’s still available, and you can always email us.

  • London Museum librarian holding a book in the museum library at London Museum Spaces.

    London Museum Librarian browsing through our collection, which comprises rare books, maps and periodicals. There is an online catalogue for you to browse through too.

London Museum's Library holds around 30,000 volumes (including monographs, periodicals and maps), collected over 200 years as both items of historical interest and research resources. Subjects span across London’s history and archaeology, to museum studies, conservation, fashion, art and social history.

We have over 5,000 rare books, volumes from the 15th to the mid-19th centuries, including these important individual collections:

  • the Bell Collection – on the Great Plague and Great Fire, including contemporary accounts such as mortality bills and eye-witness reports
  • the Tangye Collection of Cromwelliana, comprising books and manuscripts related to the English Civil War and the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell (the English Commonwealth, 1653–1659)
  • the Warwick Wroth Collection of scrapbooks on Vauxhall Gardens and South London Pleasure Gardens
  • the Harry Matthews Collection of fashion books and periodicals
  • the Mary Young Papers – household accounts of an early 19th-century middle-class London family

“The oldest printed book in the Library dates back to 1478”

  • This bible in an intricately embroidered cover is said to be associated with Queen Elizabeth I.

  • Real Life in London, or the Rambles and Adventures of Bob Tallyho Esq. and his cousin, the Hon. Tom Dashall, through the metropolis, by An Amateur (P Egan), was published in 1821. A set of two volumes, they exhibit "a living picture of fashionable characters, manners and amusements in high and low life".

  • This is a 1882–1883 edition of the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi edited by 'Boz' (Charles Dickens).

Our cartographic collection includes more than 1,000 maps and plans, showing the city of London, its streets and buildings, from the 16th century onwards.

The museum's Library also includes the Port of London Authority Library Collection.

The Library’s online catalogue

Please use our online catalogue to browse through our rich collection. We’re currently working on improving our existing records to make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for, so please bear with us if errors and duplication occur during your search.

If you’re a researcher, then our Collections Enquiries page has more information on accessing the Library’s collection.

More in our collections

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