FRIENDS OF THE BRITISH LIBRARY Registered charity no. 328095

Celebrating 25 Years 1989–2014 www.bl.uk/friends

Generously sponsored by Vitabiotics Ltd Introduction

The British Library has always Forty years ago, when the been a place for the people. Our Library split from the Museum, ultimate founder, Sir Hans Sloane, that tradition of private benefaction, was ‘always ready, on proper public support and universal notice, to admit the Curious to his access continued unabated. The Museum’, with its 50,000 books Government paid for the new and manuscripts which formed Library building and continues the nucleus of the British Library, to pay for most, though by no especially rich in medicine, maps and means all, of its upkeep and its minerals. At his death, he willed that ever-expanding collections. But the his collections should be acquired new Library needed not only to be by the State and made accessible to looked after. It needed to be loved. all. At first, George II wouldn’t play (though later he himself donated the Well before the Queen had opened Royal Library), and it was Parliament the building in 1998 and the first which by a public lottery raised readers had gazed wondering at its the funds to buy the site where the great white atrium, the Friends of British Museum still stands. the British Library had come into existence. For 25 years now, this great registered charity has raised money for the Library, helped to buy desirable items for its collections at auction and by private sale, sought to widen its circle of admirers and spread the enjoyment of the riches that the Library has to offer.

Pictured left: Sir Hans Sloane Front cover: The front cover of the St Cuthbert Gospel and Cuthbert sailing in a boat. Bede, Life of St Cuthbert, British Library, Yates Thompson 26, f. 26. Nevell family coat of arms, detail We are very grateful to our founding members and to all our past Chairmen and Secretaries, who steered the Charity successfully in its early years. Some of those who joined with Lord Wardington, our first Chairman, in 1989 are still Friends today and one, Sir Geoffrey Leigh, is a current Vice-President. We acknowledge with gratitude the support we continue to receive from St Cuthbert Gospel on display in the British Library. past and present Vice-Presidents. At the same time, we have offered our Today more than ever, the Library members an ongoing programme of needs its Friends. The Government, delights – lectures, visits to fascinating at present, funds 80 per cent of its places both in and beyond the Library, expenditure, but it has to find over free entry to Library exhibitions, £20 million a year from its own cheaper pizzas at local restaurants and resources, through revenue from the even the occasional party. services it offers and from grants and donations. In the present financial In our Silver Jubilee year, we look climate, that challenge is getting forward to continuing our work stiffer all the time. with the same zest it was begun 25 years ago. If you aren’t a Friend In the last 25 years, the Friends have already, JOIN NOW. And persuade raised over £1m for the Library. This your friends to become Friends too. generosity has allowed us to support both acquisitions, including precious Ferdinand Mount books and manuscripts, ancient, Chairman medieval and modern, and a variety of other projects from renovation of the building to digitisation of its contents. This booklet details some of the many acquisitions supported by the Friends.

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The bust of George III by Turnerelli

In 1998, the Friends purchased This collection was especially rich Peter Turnerelli’s 1812 marble bust in the classics and in examples of of King George III to commemorate early printing. From around this the move of the King’s Library into time, King George’s agents attended the new building at St Pancras. The many of the major book sales held bust was purchased entirely by the in London and on the Continent. Friends for the sum of £25,000. It They acquired both individual is currently on public display on the volumes and entire private libraries, first floor, at the head of the stairs benefiting especially from the closure at the main British Library facility and dispersal of Jesuit libraries in St Pancras, in front of the tower across southern Europe. Some that houses the King’s Library. significant works were also donated, including examples of early printing When George III came to the throne as well as contemporary works in 1760, there was no substantial presented by their authors. royal library. The so-called Old Royal Library had been moved out Dr Jennifer Howes, former Curator of St James’s Palace in 1708, before of Visual Arts at the British Library being finally presented to the new said of its acquisition and conservation: British Museum by King George II “With its prominent position in front in 1757. (The Old Royal Library is of the King’s Library Tower, the now part of the British Library.) Turnerelli bust of King George III is certainly one of the Library’s most George III therefore inherited only prominent art works. It is also well small collections of books, located loved. In 2009, when the bust was in various royal residences. He seems conserved, traces of impurities were to have decided early in his reign to found on George III’s left cheek, form a new library, one worthy of an showing that he had been repeatedly 18th-century monarch. The first major kissed. Because of marble’s porous step towards this was achieved in 1763 nature, contact with the bust is with the acquisition of the library of strictly forbidden.” Joseph Smith (1682–1770), who had been British Consul at Venice.

Bust of George III © British Library Board. Macclesfield Alphabet Book

The Library acquired the Macclesfield Alphabet Book in 2009, a ‘pattern book’ thought to have been used by scribes in medieval Britain to produce luxury books. The 15th century tome was purchased for £600,000. The Friends contributed £20,000 towards the purchase price.

The manuscript contains 14 different types of embellished alphabets. These include an alphabet of decorative initials with faces, foliate alphabets, a zoomorphic alphabet of initials, and alphabets in Gothic script. In addition, there are large coloured anthropomorphic initials modelled after 15th century woodcuts or engravings, as well as two sets of different types of Macclesfield Alphabet Book Folio with a sample alphabet, England, 1475-1525, borders, some of which are fully British Library, Add MS 88887, f. 26r. illuminated in colours and gold.

It had been in the library of the Earls to have survived from late-medieval of Macclesfield since about 1750, Britain. The ‘abcs’ are wonderfully and until recently its existence was illustrated including letters formed completely unknown. In 2010, the using animals and people, and I Library published a facsimile of the hope that those who go to see it on Macclesfield Alphabet. Said Kathleen display at the British Library will Doyle, Curator of Illuminated be captivated by its inventiveness, Manuscripts at the British Library: and that researchers will begin an “The Macclesfield Alphabet Book interesting debate on its origin, is the most complete set of designs models, and function.” for manuscript decoration known Marinetti’s Tin Book

In 2009, the Friends made a grant of £5,000 towards the Library’s purchase of Parole In Libertà Futuriste Olfattive Tattili Termiche [Futurist Words in Freedom – Olfactory, Tactile, Thermal].

Stephen Bury, the former head of the Library’s European and American collections, said the acquisition was important for the institution’s collection of about 10,000 avant- garde printed materials. “We now have the three most important Italian Futurist books and they can now be Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Parole in libertà : futuriste olfattive tattili termiche. 1932. British studied together. You wouldn’t get Library, shelfmark, HS.74/2143, front cover. them together anywhere else.”

The tin plate book has poems by the David Barrie, Director of the Art artist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Fund at the time of the acquisition, and visual interpretations of them by said: “This metal book is an his Futurist friend, Tullio D’Albisola. extraordinary invention, testifying The acquisition came in the 100th to the revolutionary spirit of a anniversary year of the founding movement that genuinely believed in of Futurism. The movement was the power of art to change the world. launched by the publication of a It also gives us an insight into the manifesto written by Marinetti, fascinating and complex relationship which Le Figaro newspaper printed between Italy’s creative elite and the on its front page. The manifesto forces of Fascism.” glorified war as “the only true hygiene of the world” and promised to “destroy museums, libraries, and fight against moralism, feminism, and all utilitarian cowardice.” Mervyn Peake Archive

In 2010, the Library acquired the Previously unknown works archive of English modernist writer discovered amongst Peake’s papers and artist, Mervyn Peake. The include the manuscript of the fourth Friends contributed £20,000 to Titus book, Titus Awakes, completed the purchase of the archive, with by Peake’s wife Maeve Gilmore after an additional £5,000 donated by this death, which was published in a Friend for this specific purchase. 2011, and the complete first scene of his sci-fi play ‘Isle Escape’, in which a Peake is best known as the author couple escape to a tropical island to of Gormenghast, for which he won wait out a world war that they later the Heinemann Prize for Literature discover failed to take place. in 1951. His uniquely visual archive arrived at the Library in Zoë Wilcox, Curator of The Worlds 28 containers, one of which was of Mervyn Peake exhibition, said: Peake’s own suitcase. “I hope this exhibition will encourage visitors to look beyond the label The collection comprises of ‘gothic fantasy’, which Peake so correspondence with notable figures disliked, to see a man who had a such as Graham Greene, Laurence profound understanding of humanity Olivier and Dylan Thomas, 39 and a wicked sense of fun. As befits autograph Gormenghast notebooks, a master of nonsense, there are a complete set of his own drawings plenty of quirks: you can discover for Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through why Peake hated camels, had trouble the Looking Glass and Alice in with geraniums and nearly lost face Wonderland, as well as other over the purchase of a palm tree.” stories, war poems, radio plays and nonsense verses. The Library mounted an exhibition entitled The Worlds of Mervyn Peake, in the summer of 2011.

British Library, Add MS 88931/1/3/9 f.25 (recto).

St Cuthbert Gospel

The fundraising campaign to acquire Speaking of the acquisition in April the St Cuthbert Gospel was the 2012, the Chief Executive of the biggest that the Library has ever run. Library at the time, Dame Lynne The single largest donation to the Brindley, said: “To look at this small fundraising campaign was a £4.5m and intensely beautiful treasure from grant from the National Heritage the Anglo-Saxon period is to see it Memorial Fund. Other major donors exactly as those who created it in the included the Art Fund, the Garfield 7th century would have seen it. The Weston Foundation and the Foyle exquisite binding, the pages, even Foundation. In 2011, the Friends the sewing structure survive intact, contributed one of its largest ever offering us a direct connection with grants, of £50,000, to help save the our forebears 1300 years ago. Its St Cuthbert Gospel for the nation. importance in the history of the book and its association with one The Gospel, which is a manuscript of Britain’s foremost saints make copy of the Gospel of St John, is the it unique, so I am delighted to earliest intact European book and is announce the successful acquisition intimately associated with Cuthbert, of the St Cuthbert Gospel by the one of Britain’s foremost saints. It British Library. This precious item was created in the late 7th century in will remain in public hands so that the north-east of England and placed present and future generations can in St Cuthbert’s cof n, apparently learn from it.” in 698. It was discovered when the cof n was opened in Durham Cathedral in 1104 on the occasion of the removal of Cuthbert’s body to a new shrine. The Gospel has a beautifully worked, original, red leather binding in excellent condition, and is the only surviving high-status manuscript from this crucial period in British history to retain its original appearance, both inside and out.

The front cover of the St Cuthbert Gospel, covered in leather dyed a deep crimson, and with a central motif containing a chalice from which stems project, terminating in a leaf or bud and four fruits (British Library, MS Additional 89000). The opening page of the St Cuthbert Gospel, beginning with the text of the Gospel of St John, and with an erased 12th-century inscription in the upper margin recording the manuscript’s discovery in 1104 (London, British Library, MS Additional 89000, f. 1r). Dovaston Organ book

In 2010, the Friends of the British Library granted £3,500 for the purchase of the Dovaston Organ Book, compiled by John Dovaston of West Felton, Shropshire.

Nicolas Bell, Curator of Music Manuscripts, writes: “There is remarkably little evidence for the manufacture of organs in Britain before the Victorian era. Surviving instruments have usually been rebuilt in later periods, and documentation is usually restricted to lists of stops and other details of the outward appearance of instruments.

“This book describes every aspect of the construction of a mid- sized house organ built by John Dovaston in 1801–04. 11 fold-out plates have scale drawings of the instrument, and comprehensive “There has been much interest in the lists of measurements and prices reconstruction of historic organs in are included. The organ itself does recent decades, especially through not survive (apart from the painted the Early English Organ Project, and labels for the stops, which were several scholars and organ builders removed from the instrument and have expressed interest in this new are included with this volume), discovery. The Library already holds but this book would enable the 15 volumes of music belonging to construction of an exact replica. Dovaston and his son, and most of the surviving information on organ manufacture from this period is also held at the Library, so there is no question that the Library is the most appropriate home for the British Library, MS Mus. 1717, ff. 71-82. manuscript.” The Harold Pinter Archive

The outstanding archive of one of Britain’s leading playwrights, the 2005 Literature Nobel Laureate, Harold Pinter, was acquired by the Library in 2007. It comprised over 150 boxes of manuscripts, scrapbooks, letters, photographs, programmes and emails, and offers an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars of Pinter’s work for stage, cinema, as well as his poetry. The entire archive has been purchased for the nation for £1.1m with the aid of a grant of £216,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and generous grants Phone call, by Harold Pinter (2006) from Dr Alice Griffin, American British Library, Add. MS 8880/3/1. Trust for the British Library, Michael Marks Charitable Trust, and other extensive correspondence with leading private trusts and donors in addition playwrights and literary figures such to Library funds. The Friends as Simon Gray, David Hare, David contributed £20,000. Mamet, Arthur Miller, John Osborne, and Sir Tom Stoppard, as well as Highlights of the archive include actors and directors including Sir John an exceedingly perceptive and Gielgud and Sir Peter Hall. enormously affectionate run of letters from Samuel Beckett, letters and Jamie Andrews, Head of Modern hand-written manuscripts revealing Literary Manuscripts, said: “It is Pinter’s close collaboration with thrilling for the Library to have director Joseph Losey; a charming and acquired the archive of our greatest highly amusing exchange of letters living playwright. This is a wonderful with Philip Larkin; and a draft of collection that sheds new light on each Pinter’s unpublished autobiographical stage of Harold Pinter’s unparalleled memoir of his youth, ‘The Queen of career over the past 50 years, and we all the Fairies’. look forward to making the material accessible to researchers, and to Pinter’s key role in post-War theatre playing our part in celebrating his and film is documented through his life and work.” ‘My Ladye Nevells Booke’

The manuscript was accepted The manuscript provides a snapshot by HM Government in Lieu of of the keyboard music he had Inheritance Tax and allocated to composed by that date and is an the Library in April 2006. As its exceptionally important source value came to more than the tax for his music. It contains some of owed, the Library had to raise the his best-known compositions for difference. The Friends contributed keyboard, including variations £10,000 towards its acquisition, on the popular tunes ‘Sellinger’s and organised a memorable concert Round’ and ‘All in a Garden Green’. of the music, played by Terence Charlston on the virginals. It also includes music written by Byrd specially for the dedicatee ‘My Ladye Nevells Booke’ is one of of the manuscript, ‘Ladye Nevell’. the most beautifully written music She has recently been identi ed as manuscripts to survive from the late Elizabeth, wife of Sir Henry Nevell 16th century, and is still preserved of Billingbere, Berkshire. Her in its original ornate binding. It family’s coat of arms adorns a was painstakingly compiled by the leaf at the front of the manuscript. Windsor-based scribe John Baldwin, who completed work on it on 11 September 1591. Baldwin seems to have worked under the direction of the composer of all the pieces in the book, William Byrd, and clearly thought highly of him, describing him elsewhere as one:

whose greate skill and knowledge: dothe excelle all at this tyme:

and farre to strange countries: abroade his skill dothe shyne:

Nevell family coat of arms, detail. Nicolas Bell, Curator of Music “We are delighted now to be able Manuscripts at the British Library, to make it available to readers, and said: “William Byrd’s keyboard to the wider public in our exhibition music ranks as one of the undisputed gallery and by publishing the complete pinnacles of Elizabethan craftsmanship, manuscript online. In the years since on a par with Hilliard’s miniatures or the acquisition, many new discoveries Shakespeare’s sonnets. This exquisite have been made about the manuscript, manuscript, the most important source and books and scholarly articles of this music, has been seen by only a about it have been published in handful of scholars in the last 400 years. several languages.”

The whole text is now available at the Library’s Online Gallery. www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/virtualbooks/viewall/index.html#

A voluntarie: for my ladye nevell: by William Byrd. British Library, MS Mus. 1591, detail.

The Royal Philharmonic Society

In November 2002, the archive Beethoven was a mainstay of the of the Royal Philharmonic Society Philharmonic Society’s repertory was added to the Library’s from its inception. In 1822, collections following an appeal Beethoven accepted a commission to raise the £1m needed for its from the Society for a new symphony. acquisition. The Friends’ contribution It was not until the end of 1824 that of £20,000 enabled the Library to a manuscript score of the ‘Choral’ complete the purchase. Symphony arrived, carrying on its title-page a dedication to the Society Over its 200 year history, the Royal in Beethoven’s own hand. Philharmonic Society has been at the heart of musical life in Britain, The Library undertook a and its archive is a vital part of our comprehensive cataloguing and musical heritage. Founded in 1813, conservation programme for the the Society is the oldest surviving archive in the two years following public concert-giving body in the UK its acquisition, and in 2012–13 and the second oldest in the world. the entire archive was digitised as It arranged more concerts in London part of the Nineteenth Century during the 19th century than any Collections Online database. Items other organisation. from the archive are consulted in the reading room very frequently, The Society has built up a substantial and continue to feature prominently archive since its foundation, including in the Society’s own work, taking over 270 manuscript scores, some centre stage in their bicentenary outstanding autographs among them, celebrations in 2013. and an astonishing collection of correspondence files, working papers “It was unthinkable that it [the and minute books which detail many Archive] should leave the country,” of the negotiations with composers, said Hugh Cobbe, Head of British performers and publishers in Music Collections at the Library preparation for each season’s concerts. in 2002. “The archive is key to The archive has been described as the the study of the role of music and single most important source for the concert-giving in London society history of music in England in the during the 19th and much of the 19th century. 20th centuries.”

British Library, RPS MSS 1-417. Smallburgh map

British Library, Maps 242.a.29.

The Friends contributed £6,000 beggar and the figures surrounding towards the purchase price of this the panels indicating orientation, are map of the parish of Smallburgh in derived from prints from painting Norfolk dating from 1582. It is the by Pieter Breughel and sculptures of work of John Darby, who was active Michelangelo. This local map thus as a map maker between 1582 and manifests Elizabethan England’s 1594 and is significant as one of contacts with Renaissance Europe. the first English local maps to be drawn to a consistent scale. It is in Of its acquisition by the Library, Peter unusually good condition, probably Barber, Head of Map Collections due to it never having been displayed said: “This acquisition has more because of its unfinished state: there than repaid the Friends’ generosity. is no title, several field name panels Its purchase has enabled it to be are left blank and some decoration intensively studied, leading to the is only pencilled in. correct identification of its original owner. Parker was probably an The map was made for Sir Philip acquaintance of Thomas Seckford, Parker, the half-brother of the 9th the patron of Christopher Saxton, Baron Morley, a Catholic who had who had recently completed the been forced to flee the country after first detailed maps of the counties of being accused of treason in 1572. England and Wales. It thus stems The decoration includes a wealth from the circle which was responsible of animals, people and country for the first detailed mapping of this pursuits. This map depicts scenes country. It was one of the stars of that are specific to the fenland area Magnificent Maps, the most popular and that certain features, such as the British Library exhibition to date.” A Monterverdi letter

The Friends made a grant of £10,000 in 2009 towards a four- page letter of 1627 from Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) to his patron, Marchese Enzo Bentivoglio, discussing music appropriate to accompany a dramatic presentation of Tasso’s Aminta.

No music manuscripts survive in Monteverdi’s hand and of his 120 extant letters, this is one of only two ever to have come on the market.

Nicolas Bell, curator of Music manuscripts at the Library commented: “This letter is of particular importance as it includes a substantial discussion of the types British Library, MS Mus. 1707, f. 1r. of musical composition that would be appropriate to accompany five “Monteverdi is the greatest figure in intermedi in a dramatic presentation music for whom autograph material of Torquato Tasso’s Aminta. is practically unobtainable, and this Monteverdi writes, ‘I have thought addition to the Library’s otherwise about the representation of Discord, nearly comprehensive collection of and it seems a little difficult, as the representative autograph sources of Months must sing together to soft great composers is therefore greatly music, but the contrary music will to be welcomed.” be used for Discord’. The ensuing discussion of the appropriate types of music for particular contexts is of importance to the history of musical aesthetics.

The Dering Roll

The Library raised £194,184 The shields are arranged in 54 to acquire the Dering roll; the rows, with six shields on each Friends contributed £10,000. line. Above each shield reads The Head of Medieval and the knight’s name, except in six Earlier Manuscripts, Claire cases where it has been omitted Breay said of the purchase, or removed. Stephen de Pencester “The acquisition of the Dering may have commissioned the roll Roll provides an extremely rare during his time as Constable of chance to add a manuscript of Dover Castle. enormous local and national significance.” It is now on During the 20th century, it display at the Sir John Ritblat was acquired by Sir Anthony Gallery in the Library, and Wagner. On 4 December 2007, available to researchers in the the roll was sold at auction Library’s manuscripts reading at Sotheby’s for the sum of room. £192,000 to a private individual who subsequently applied for The Dering Roll depicts the an export licence. After the coats of arms of around a Reviewing Committee on the quarter of the English baronage Export of Works of Art judged during the era of Edward I. it of national importance, the Emphasis was given to knights Culture Minister deferred the from Sussex and Kent, as it was issue of an export licence to produced in Dover between allow a British institution the 1270 and 1280 and the time to raise the money to document was designed to list purchase it. the knights who owed feudal service there. It depicts 324 coats of arms, beginning with Richard Fitz Roy and William de Say, two of King John’s illegitimate sons.

British Library, Add Roll 77720. Ted Hughes archive

In 2008, the Library acquired the critical acclaim, as well as achieving archive of one of the most influential phenomenal sales, with over 500,000 literary figures of post-war Britain, copies sold worldwide. The collection the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes includes Hughes’s personal diaries (1930–1998). The collection which span the decades from the comprises over 220 files and boxes 1950s to the 1990s. There is also an of manuscripts, letters, journals, extensive correspondence with leading personal diaries and ephemera, and literary figures, including Seamus offers an invaluable resource for Heaney, Andrew Motion, Kathleen researchers in all areas of Hughes’s Raine, Thom Gunn and Tom Paulin. wide-ranging career over more than When he died in October 1998, Ted 40 years. The archive was saved for Hughes was universally acclaimed the nation with generous support as a towering figure in 20th-century from the Friends of the National British poetry and has been described Libraries, and a £200,000 grant from by the Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney the Shaw Fund towards the purchase as “a guardian spirit of the land price of £500,000. The Friends made and language”. Hughes had been a £20,000 contribution towards appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and purchase of the archive. was awarded the Order of Merit by the Queen in 1998. At the heart of the archive are the manuscripts relating to Birthday Rachel Foss, Curator of Modern Letters, Hughes’s collection of poems Literary Manuscripts at the Library, charting and exploring his relationship said: “We are thrilled that this with his first wife, the poet Sylvia wonderful collection will now be Plath. Birthday Letters was published preserved in perpetuity in the Library. in 1998 and attracted widespread This archive will play a crucial role in developing and challenging current critical understanding of the life and work of Ted Hughes, widely regarded as one of the great British literary figures of the 20th century. It is an inestimably important addition to the Library’s world-renowned collections of literary manuscripts and represents a resource of major international importance for researchers and scholars.” The Communist Manifesto

Despite its later fame, the slim 23-page pamphlet had limited impact at the time. Although several hundred copies were distributed, fewer than 30 copies of the first edition are known to have survived. In 2009, the Library acquired what is believed to be the only complete copy of the first edition to be held in the UK, and now the only copy in the world held by a national Library. The Friends granted £10,000 towards its purchase, ensuring that this landmark document is preserved in the city of its birth, where it can be seen and studied in the Library’s reading rooms. British Library, shelfmark: C.194.b.289, front cover. Appearing as a wave of revolutions swept Europe in the spring of 1848, “The Communist Manifesto has the pamphlet that we know as The been described as the best-known Communist Manifesto, compiled and certainly the most widely by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, translated pamphlet of the 19th was first printed in London. An century,” said Elizabeth James, association of German political former Head of 19th century British exiles sponsored the printing – in Collections at the Library. German, by an obscure radical press – of what would become one of the “It also has a special significance most momentous political works of for the Library. Following his return all time. Originally titled Manifesto to London as a penniless refugee of the Communist Party (German: in September 1849, Marx obtained Manifest der Kommunistischen a ticket for the British Museum Partei), it set out the programme and Library – former home of the British purpose of the Communist League. Library – and was a regular reader during the 1850s and 1860s.” Alec Guinness archive

In 2012, the Library acquired the archive of Sir Alec Guinness from his family for £320,000, including funding of £20,000 from the Friends. It charts Guinness’s career from the late 1930s to his death in 2000, and includes more than 900 of his letters to family and friends and over 100 volumes of diaries. Guinness’s papers join those of Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson to complete the Library’s collection of archives of the great 20th century theatrical knights. Cataloguing is due to take place over the next year and the Library anticipates that the archive will be open for research in 2014.

Sir Alec Guinness. © Allan Warren. These papers, which will be publicly available for the first time, offer an intimate account of Alec Guinness reflects on Olivier’s acting Guinness’s life, detailing his wartime technique and contribution to the responsibilities and his conversion stage, and Guinness’s account of his to Roman Catholicism in 1956, premonition of death the day before as well as his successful career his boat went down in a freak storm on stage and screen. during World War II.

Highlights include a letter to his Roly Keating, Chief Executive of wife written during the opening the British Library, said he was night of the 1938 Old Vic season particularly thrilled with the which made his reputation, a acquisition, as somebody “mildly diary entry following the death obsessed” with the Ealing comedies. of Laurence Olivier in which Friends of the British Library Membership form Registered charity no. 328095

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