It’s our birthday! Join us to celebrate 180 glorious years of The London Library with The London Library Lit Fest.

We’re bringing together some of the brightest stars in the literary firmament for an eclectic and thought-provoking Bank Holiday weekend of online talks, workshops and performances, exploring libraries and The London Library in particular, as open places of community, discovery and refuge; where every book and every voice has a place; where ideas and creativity can form and grow. 

Salman Rushdie joins us to mark 40 years since the publication of Midnight’s Children; Simon Schama talks famous literary friendships and rivalries; Sarah Waters chats to Hallie Rubenhold, Tom Stoppard to Edmund de Waal, Polly Samson to Edward Docx; we celebrate Rebecca West and Stefan Zweig; delve into our famously eccentric Science & Miscellaneous section with 5x15, discover lost literary gems with Virago and Hamish Hamilton and gender swap stories with Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett. We premiere our dramatisation of A Room of One’s Own and then go out with a poetry party, courtesy of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. All that and plenty more besides.

Tickets for most events cost £5 or you can buy a Festival Pass at the very reasonable price of £25 for all the weekend’s events.

FIND OUT MORE ON OUR FESTIVAL WEBSITE