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Face of Alexander the Great statue opened to reveal a pink elephant, a snake, a horse and a ship.

Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth

Fri 21 Oct 2022 - Sun 19 Feb 2023

Treasures of the British Library. Discover stories that shape the world.

Treasures of the British Library

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A History of African and Caribbean People in Britain: Hakim Adi with David Olusoga

Today

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Indoor Jungles: The Story of the Houseplant

Mon 7 Nov 2022

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The Real Bookseller of Kabul: Shah Muhammad Rais in conversation

Tue 8 Nov 2022

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Black Theatre Making and Censorship in the Archive

Tue 8 Nov 2022

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Ukraine Lab Launch

Wed 9 Nov 2022

Hunter Davis

Hunter Davies: Writing The Beatles

Fri 11 Nov 2022

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The Polari Prize

Tue 15 Nov 2022

Viv Albertine and Musa Okwonga

RSL: Life-Writing Today with Viv Albertine and Musa Okwonga

Wed 16 Nov 2022

Seth Kriebel

The Death of King Arthur

Wed 16 Nov 2022

Limited places

Ken Cheng, Kuan-wen Huang, Evelyn Mok

Ken Cheng Chinese Comedian and Guests

Fri 18 Nov 2022

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Irish Writers' Weekend London

Sat 26 Nov 2022

All events and exhibitions

News

Ancient mappe of Fairyland designed by Bernard Sleigh

Dates for your diary – our 2023 exhibitions

Fantasy literature, the legendary Malorie Blackman, the future of storytelling, and animals in art and science. 2023 is looking…

Web maintenance at the British Library

Travel disruption and delivery updates

There may be some disruption to our services over the next few weeks.

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Blogs

European blog from the British Library

Call for PhD project partners: ‘Postcolonial Discourse in East European Studies and its Application to British Library Collections’

Music blog from the British Library

Happy Birthday Vaughan Williams

Medieval manuscripts blog from the British Library

A medieval best-seller: the Alexander Romance

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Preview of the Black literature timeline poster, showing text entries by date, portraits and a tablet featuring images of book covers and handwritten manuscripts

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‘How come England did not know me?’: Recording Andrea Levy for Authors’ Lives

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A Description of Three Hundred Animals [page: frontispiece and title page]

The Devonshire Manuscript

Explore this hand-written volume, known as the Devonshire Manuscript

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