British Library

Green light given for huge British Library extension

Community-focused £500m scheme will build new galleries, a learning centre, green spaces and a home for the Alan Turing Institute of data science

Sarah Shaffi

03, Feb, 2023 @2:56 PM

Mary, Queen of Scoffs: jailed monarch ate only the best, papers reveal

Newly discovered official accounts show that, while a prisoner of Elizabeth I, her cousin lived a life of luxury

Dalya Alberge

05, Nov, 2022 @2:00 PM

New exhibition to explore mythology of Alexander the Great

British Library showcases two millennia of storytelling inspired by the ancient Macedonian conqueror

Esther Addley

20, Oct, 2022 @7:06 PM

Alexander the Great review – cultural treasures reduced to the status of comics

This infuriating show shoves Scrooge McDuck next to Plutarch in a postmodern take on history which seems to forget that the Macedonian warlord was a real, live person

Jonathan Jones

19, Oct, 2022 @3:47 PM

British Library to host Salman Rushdie celebration event

Writers including Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali and Nigella Lawson will gather in London to share readings and reflections two months after the author was attacked on stage

Sarah Shaffi

10, Oct, 2022 @1:27 PM

‘I miss my hometown, my friend – and my mum’s delicious food’: the cookbook made by refugees

Far from their families in Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Chad, the young authors of Cooked with Love have found a way to recreate their favourite meals – and share them with the world

Polly Russell

20, Sep, 2022 @9:00 AM

The Lindisfarne Gospels review – was Eadfrith the monk Britain’s first great artist?

This mind-bending illuminated manuscript was created in AD700 by Eadfrith, a monk who was as entranced by pattern and abstraction as Jackson Pollock

Jonathan Jones

14, Sep, 2022 @4:12 PM

Aids: The Unheard Tapes review – tragedy and joy from voices no longer with us

This powerful documentary, based on recordings made by those caught in the first wave of HIV, is remarkable in its celebration of a hedonistic lifestyle shaped in part by a homophobic society

Lucy Mangan

27, Jun, 2022 @9:30 PM

The week in classical: Manchester Collective & Abel Selaocoe; Music@Malling; Music x Museums

Sparks fly as the South African cellist Abel Selaocoe and Manchester Collective live on the edge – and as six composers respond to Bach’s Brandenburg concertos

Fiona Maddocks

30, Apr, 2022 @11:30 AM

Smashed Guardian hard drives feature in British Library exhibition

Tech destroyed to protect Edward Snowden leaks among items that consider role of media over 500 years

Harriet Sherwood Arts and culture correspondent

21, Apr, 2022 @6:44 PM

Mary, Queen of Scots ‘locked’ final letter using paper-folding, research finds

On the eve of her execution, Mary wrote a last message to French king, which scholars believe she used elaborate skill to secure

Alison Flood

10, Dec, 2021 @2:35 PM

Mowgli, Bagheera, Baloo: Rudyard Kipling’s own sketches of the Jungle Book cast revealed

Until recently, drawings made to help shape the characters could only be seen in the British Library. Now they will feature in a new edition