P. R. Harris This is a celebration of the Reading Room which was built in 1854-57. It was however preceded

A Man from the North

.

In the centre of the reading-room at the British Museum sit four men fenced about by a 

quadruple ring of unwieldy volumes which are an index to all the knowledge in the world. 

The four men know those volumes as a good courier knows the Continental Bradshaw, 

and all day long, from early morning, when the attendants, self-propelled on wheeled 

stools, run round the rings arranging and aligning the huge blue tomes, to late afternoon, 

15

  Max Beerbohm, ‘Enoch Soames’, in 

Seven Men 

(London, 1919), pp. 1-48.

---

10

The Reading Room in Literature

eBLJ 2019,  Article 5

when the immense dome is like a dark night and the arc lamps hiss and crackle in the 

silence, they answer questions, patiently, courteously; they are seldom embarrassed and 

less seldom in the wrong.

     Radiating in long rows from the central fortress of learning, a diversified company 

of readers disposes itself: bishops, statesmen, men of science, historians, needy pedants, 

popular authors whose broughams are waiting in the precincts, journalists, medical 

students, law students, curates, hack-writers, women with clipped hair and black aprons, 

idlers; all short-sighted and all silent.

     Every few minutes an official enters in charge of an awed group of country visitors, 

and whispers mechanically the unchanging formula: ‘Eighty thousand volumes in this 

room alone: thirty-six miles of bookshelves in the Museum altogether.’ Whereupon the 

visitors stare about them, the official unsuccessfully endeavours not to let it appear that 

the credit of the business belongs entirely to himself, and the party retires again.

     Vague, reverberating noises roll heavily from time to time across the chamber, but no 

one looks up; the incessant cannibal feast of the living upon the dead goes speechlessly 

forward; the trucks of food are always moving to and fro, and the nonchalant waiters 

seem to take no rest.

16

It was in the 1890s that the Superintendent one day encountered a ragged and dirty man 

walking about the room without his shoes on. When told that it was not proper to behave in 

this way, he was quite unabashed and replied that he could not help it if his feet were tender. It 

would be a brave librarian today who would venture to remonstrate with any reader about his 

style of dress or undress.

The next reading is from E. M. Forster’s favourite among his own works – 

The Longest 

Journey

, published in 1907.

Ansell was in his favourite haunt – the reading-room of the British Museum. In that 

book-encircled space he always could find peace. He loved to see the volumes rising 

tier above tier into the misty dome. He loved the chairs that glide so noiselessly, and 

the radiating desks, and the central area, where the catalogue shelves curve round the 

superintendent’s throne. There he knew that his life was not ignoble.  It was worth while 

to grow old and dusty seeking for truth though truth is unattainable, restating problems 

that have been stated at the beginning of the world. Failure would await him, but not 

disillusionment. It was worth while reading books, and writing a book or two which few 

would read, and no one, perhaps, endorse. He was not a hero, and he knew it. […]

     In the next chair to him sat Widdrington, engaged in his historical research.  His desk 

was edged with enormous volumes, and every few moments an assistant brought him 

more. They rose like a wall against Ansell.

17

Political refugees have always made much use of the Reading Room, and so when Ivan 

Maisky (later Soviet Ambassador to the UK from 1932 to 1943) came to London in 1912 he 

soon made for the place which had provided sanctuary for, amongst others, Marx, Lenin and 

Kropotkin, the anarchist.

When you have shown the attendant your reader’s ticket, passed through the narrow 

corridor separating the Reading Room from the entrance and found yourself under 

its semicircular vault, you feel that you have entered a world of its own. Above your 

head is the high, beautiful dome, below which are twenty fine rectangular windows and 

underneath each the name of some great figure in English culture. […]

16

  E. A. Bennett,