THE LONDON LIBRARY BORROWINGS OF THOMAS CARLYLE, 1841–1844

Abstract

THOMAS Carlyle's personal crusade for the opening of a lending library in London and his enlisting for the support of that cause influential and wealthy patrons such as Lord Clarendon, Bulwer‐Lytton, Lord Lyttelton, Dean Milman, Lord Houghton, W. E. Gladstone, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Henry Hallam—amongst a host of other now forgotten early Victorian luminaries—is well documented. According to Robert Harrison's Preface to the 1888 fifth edition of the Catalogue of the London Library, it opened on 3 May 1841 “with a collection of about 3,000 volumes, which, by the following March, when the first Catalogue was published, had increased to 13,000” (p.viii). The Library was declared formally open on 24 May 1841 using a hired hall in Pall Mall. There were 500 members. In April 1845 the Library moved to its present location in St. James's Square.