London Library, a favourite haunt of the art and literary crowds, celebrates its 185th birthday

One of London’s most elegant and popular bastions of scholarly endeavour is the London Library in St James’s Square, which celebrates its 185th anniversary this year. Notable patrons and members include key art world figures such as the ceramicist Edmund de Waal who is due to give a talk later this year (1 October) at the library on his 2025 book An Archive, exploring “the meaning, purpose and materiality of archives”. Meanwhile the library has a dedicated Art Room and an extensive Art Reading Room with a collection of more than 25,000 art books available for perusal, spanning antiquity to today. We hear that a number of writers at The Art Newspaper often seek refuge in this literary oasis. While on a recent jaunt, top art and cultural commentators such as Katy Hessel, the author of The Story of Art Without Men, and columnist A.N. Wilson were spotted, deep in thought, among the book stacks. Here’s to another 185 years…