This week on the Secret Library, we hear from Karen Downham in our Local and Family History department, who looks at the Leeds Savage Club, a group active in the early 1900s, and whose members had a strong influence on the city of Leeds, and beyond. January 2020: Since the publication of this article, Karen…
Category: Art & Literature
Alan Bennett and Yorkshire
This week we hear from Dr Kara McKechnie, lecturer in Dramaturgy at the University of Leeds who writes for us on Alan Bennett and Yorkshire. Alan Bennett’s Yorkshire is not one of beautiful countryside, proud civic architecture and quaint rows of red brick houses. In his memories, it is a landscape with very little colour…
Double, double toil and trouble – What inspired the witches in Macbeth?
This week we hear from Collections Manager Rhian Isaac on some sources for Shakespeare’s witches… It’s a month until Shakespeare Week and to start getting people in the mood I have been bringing out some of our collections to explore why Shakespeare may have incorporated the supernatural into his plays. Monsters, fairies, witches, demons and…
‘Sundry Articles of Queens or Cream-Colou-r’d Earthen-Ware’ – The Leeds Pottery Books
Adam Barham, Assistant Librarian Manager in the Art Library, takes a look at our collection of rare Leeds Pottery Books… Leeds Central Library houses several rare volumes relating to the Leeds Pottery Company. These include the Design, Drawing & Pattern Books and another set of volumes entitled ‘Designs of Sundry Articles of Queens or Cream-Colou-r’d…
Leeds in The Builder
This week we hear from Library Officer Kiera Falgate on images of historic Leeds in the Central Library’s collection of The Builder, an architectural journal that begin in the mid-19th-century… The Art Library on the first floor in Leeds Central Library holds the complete collection of The Builder from volume 1 in 1843 to the final volume…
The Magic of Books from the Golden Age of Illustration
This week we hear from illustrator Teresa Flavin on some magically-illustrated books from her childhood… When I was about nine years old, my family visited a used bookshop where I discovered a fairy story with graceful line illustrations. The book was cheap enough to buy with my pocket money and though it was somewhat battered…
The Silent Traveller in the Yorkshire Dales
This week we hear from Library Officer, Will Poulter, on a surprising perspective of the Yorkshire Dales… One of the joys of working in the library is that sometimes I come across books that strike me, that I may never have known exist. This happened recently when I came across a modest journal by a Chinese…
The History of Book Illustration
This week Central Collections Manager, Rhian Isaac discusses The History of Book Illustration through our collections here in Central Library. Illustrated texts pre-date the printed book by thousands of years but unfortunately much has been lost from early civilisations, such as Greece, China and Rome due to the fragility of the material. Ancient Egypt is the exception…
