Dickens and London

Celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens in the first major UK exhibition for over 40 years - at the Museum of London until 10 June 2012

Paintings, photographs, costume and objects illustrate themes that Dickens wove into his works, while rarely seen manuscripts including Bleak House and David Copperfield — written in the author's own hand — offer clues to his creative genius.

Discover how Dickens' childhood experiences of London, working in a blacking factory while his father was locked away in a debtor's prison, were introduced into the stories he wrote. The great social questions of the 19th century, including wealth and poverty, prostitution, childhood mortality and philanthropy, is also examined, all of which set the scene for Dickens' greatest works.

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French national treasures from the Imprimerie Nationale

In December, French national treasures from the Imprimerie Nationale will be on public view in the largest exhibition ever presented at the Grolier Club. Highlighting the history of the Imprimerie Nationale, arguably the most important printing house in Europe, the comprehensive exhibition Printing for Kingdom, Empire, and Republic: Treasures from the Archives of the Imprimerie Nationale lavishly documents nearly five centuries of printing art and craft. These books, manuscripts, and objects from their archives have never before left France and will be seen for the first time at the Grolier Club, New York City. A detailed press release, as well as a listing of related events, is attached.

On view from December 7, 2011 through February 4, 2012, the exhibition includes more than 200 prized possessions drawn from the vast holdings of the Imprimerie Nationale. It has been organized by H. George Fletcher, retired Brooke Russell Astor Director at The New York Public Library.

One of the themes of the show that resonates today spotlights the work of the 16th-century French punch-cutter Claude Garamond. The name Garamond holds a revered place in the history of typography and thus of the printed transmission of thought. In 1538, Francis I, King of France, appointed Angelo Vergetio as the royal scribe for Greek. It was Vergetio's manuscripts that served Garamond as his model for the first Greek typeface, and subsequent others, created in France by royal order. The Imprimerie Nationale, the French national typographic and printing establishment, is the direct descendent of this formative event. And, to this day, Garamond fonts remain one of the most widely recognized type styles.

On display throughout all the Grolier gallery spaces are magnificently printed books as well as Garamond's the punches, matrices, and fonts of moveable type which created them. Among the works showcased are scholarly productions of the Renaissance in France, the massive and gorgeous Description de l'Egypt commissioned by Napoleon, and artists' books of the twentieth century by such masters as Pierre Bonnard, Joan Miro, and Henry Moore.

A major publication, printed in Garamond by the Imprimerie National's Atelier du Livre d'Art et l'Estampe, will accompany the exhibition. On the schedule is a full calendar of events, including demonstrations of printing processes, lectures, and a day-long colloquium.

For further details, visit the Grolier Club website

Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination

Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination
11 November 2011- 13 March 2012

Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination is the British Library’s first major exhibition to bring together the Library’s Royal collection, a treasure trove of illuminated manuscripts collected by the Kings and Queens of England between the 9th and 16th centuries.

This dazzling exhibition will debunk the myth that these were ‘the Dark Ages’ by showcasing beautiful artistic artefacts. 

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A Hankering after Ghosts: Charles Dickens and the Supernatural

The Folio Society Gallery
British Library

To mark the bicentenary of Charles Dickens's birth, this exhibition explores the many ways in which Dickens used supernatural phenomena in his works, while placing them in the context of scientific, technological and philosophical debates of his time. Dickens's interest in the macabre was apparent from an early age. As an adult he was caught up in 'mesmeric mania' that swept Britain and developed an interest in the 'power of the human mind'. He believed that all supernatural manifestations must have rational explanations, but his investigations into animal magnetism and psychology showed him that science could be as chilling as any ghost story. As a result he became wonderfully adept at suspending readers between psychological and supernatural explanations in his fiction.

Beyond Macbeth: Shakespeare in Scottish Collections

Over 400 years, the National Library of Scotland and Edinburgh University Library have acquired world-class collections of plays by William Shakespeare. These shed light on the ways in which Shakespeare's works have been read, collected, adapted and circulated in the centuries since they first appeared in print.

‘Beyond Macbeth: Shakespeare in Scottish Collections’, is the new exhibition running at NLS from 9 December 2011 to 29 April 2012 which looks at these collections through the lives and activities of those who helped to bring them together, from the Scottish poet William Drummond to the editor and critic John Dover Wilson. It asks what Shakespeare - valued and championed in so many different ways in the past - means in Scotland today.

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