London Library

London Library is a membership lending library in Westminster housing more than one million books across seven floors. The Victorian building features metal grilles and glass floors that allow views between levels.

Thomas Carlyle founded this institution in 1841 as an alternative to the British Museum Library so readers could take books home. The institution began with a few thousand volumes and expanded its collection continuously over more than a century and a half.

The reading room offers desks overlooking tall bookshelves where members work quietly and take notes. Many authors and researchers come here to access rare editions and specialist volumes that are hard to find elsewhere.

Members pay an annual fee to use the collection and borrow books without a return deadline. Visitors find subject areas covering literature, history and philosophy spread across different floors with signage pointing the way.

The collection organizes books by broad subject areas rather than a numerical classification system, making browsing easier. Shelves hold works from different centuries side by side, allowing readers to discover unexpected connections between older and newer texts.