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William Morris and the Library of the Future

In the previous article, we discussed Panizzi’s scheme for the reformation of the British Museum Library, suggesting something of the utopian aspirations of the Library and some of its reader…

crusoesbooks.wordpress.com

August 28, 2025 at 12:32 PM

billiusbell.bsky.social

@billiusbell.bsky.social

New blog on Thomas More's Utopian library.

crusoesbooks.wordpress.com/2025/08/10/a...

A New World Library

WHEN HE SET OUT his foundational Utopia in 1516, Thomas More was thinking about a library. The sea captain Raphael Hythloday reports that he ‘happened to carry a great many books . . . instead of …

crusoesbooks.wordpress.com

August 10, 2025 at 3:10 PM

billiusbell.bsky.social

@billiusbell.bsky.social

Latest blog.

Ambient Reading

‘The swing-doors swung open; and there one stood under the vast dome.’ IN THE 1830s, the Italian political dissident Antonio Panizzi became Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum…

crusoesbooks.wordpress.com

July 30, 2025 at 10:46 AM

billiusbell.bsky.social

@billiusbell.bsky.social

Another recent blog post, inspired by The Salt Path.
crusoesbooks.wordpress.com/2025/07/10/u...

Unreliable Travellers

Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in The Salt Path (2025) SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I was speaking with a dinner guest who had lately become a household name, largely owing to a couple of highly sucessful…

crusoesbooks.wordpress.com

July 10, 2025 at 3:34 PM

billiusbell.bsky.social

@billiusbell.bsky.social

Latest blog post.

crusoesbooks.wordpress.com/2025/07/04/t...

The Secret of England’s Greatness

It would be difficult to find an image that has become more emblematic of the operation of print in the imperial world than Thomas Jones Barker’s The Secret of England’s Greatness. Today the painti…

crusoesbooks.wordpress.com

July 4, 2025 at 10:21 AM

billiusbell.bsky.social

@billiusbell.bsky.social

Thinking about the sound of collective intellectual labour, I recently remembered the sensory experience of working in the old Rotunda, its sights and smells. Today I found a field recording of it. Go to 'British Library'.
sound-effects.bbcrewind.co.uk/search?q=%20...