 If you fond of reading books, I'm pretty sure that you must be fond of visiting libraries. Today I'm going to take you to one such library which is known as the Lord of the Libraries, the British Library. So in this beautiful city of London I'm going to today explore the largest library of the world and also I'm going to take you to the National Library of UK which has a remarkable collection of books and I'm also going to take you through the beautiful collection of books as well as all the antiques, maps and different things related to history and literature. Do you know that any book published in Britain and Ireland, a copy of such books are given automatically to the British Library. In the entire year you'll be surprised to know that 3 million such titles are added to the archive list of British Library and that adds up to about 200 million titles making it one of the largest libraries of the world and there are so many exciting things about British Library which will give wow moments to all the literature fans out there. So what are we waiting for? Let's go and explore the library right now. The British Library is located next to the King's Cross station at the St. pancreas international station. What you will notice when you come here is that the exterior wall of the British Library is made up of a brick colour which is very similar to that of the St. pancreas international and King's Cross railway station and that is done to make these two buildings look alike and to give a very very beautiful feel to the road down there. So one interesting fact about British Library is that it is said to be UK's largest public building project of 20th century and why is that so? Because the design and construction of this building took about 37 years and one very famous thing about this museum the British Library is that it was a part of the British Museum before 1973 and later in 1998 when it was inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II it shifted here to in the Houston Road. The most amazing place to start the tour of British Library is Sir John's Gallery which houses some amazing manuscripts of famous writers and their works. That particular gallery in this British Library is a very cool and dark room why is that so? In order to preserve the delicate artefacts which has been saved from thousands of years. So it basically contains everything from Magna Carta to Shakespeare, from Florence Nightingale to Gandhi. Basically, all the famous authors, famous writers, famous figures you will find in this library You just need to know their name and you'll find them right here in this library. The exhibition or the gallery is divided into different sections ranging from religion to literature, from music to arts and specifically if we talk about the literature section we have some amazing works out there. You'll find original copies of Travels of Sir John Manvale, Book of Mary Kempie which is the earliest written biography, Sir Gawain and Green Knight's copy, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales copy, Ben Johnson's Mask of Queens, Robert Burns and William Blake's Poem, then you have Jane Austen's Desk, Charlotte Bront and Emery Bronte's work, copy of Oscar Wilde's and Ideal Husband, single leaf from Charles Dickens' manuscript for Epic Quick Papers, manuscripts of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Platt and Wilfridge Oven Poems and Hanif Qureshi's film My Beautiful Laureate Script as well. So now we'll talk about the most beautiful section of the museum where you'll find a lot of information about Shakespeare. So for all the Shakespeare fans out there, we are now going to talk about the place in the museum where you are going to find the first folio of William Shakespeare. Yes, so it is this museum, the British Library where you find the first folio of William Shakespeare along with a lot of other information related to Shakespeare's heroines and a lot of other characters introduced by Shakespeare to the world of literature. British Library also contains a collection of ancient maps and you'll be shocked to see that there's a beautiful map of New York City back then in 1600s and also a very nice map of Amritsar Panjab which was actually designed, a map of which was designed by one of the British officials right after India got independent on the command of our first Prime Minister Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru. Literature or music ke baad jo next cheese maap ke saha share karna chahungi from the British Library is the precious religious text. Yes guys, British Library also talks about and displays a wide array of important literary documents and religious documents from different religions be it Jainism, Sikhism, Hinduism or Christianity, Islam, you will find all those documents right there in the British Library and for all the UGC Net aspirants out there, there's a very special news for you. Wycliffe Bible and Tyndale's Bible ke baare maa baataati hu maa write un dono ke original manuscript bhi aapko British Library ke andar milege along with Gutenberg's Bible which was known as the first printed book across Europe. So literature ke baad ho gaye religion ke baad ho gaye art and culture ke baare maa baad kar lete hain. So British Library ke andar you will also find the notebooks and preparatory sketches of Da Vinci and Michael Angelo, the famous Italian painters. Not just that, you will also find research diagrams of Florence Nightingale. You will find Diamond Sutra which was the first printed book that was written ever. Did you know that? I don't think so. And finally you will also find letters written by our own Mahatma Gandhi theorist, Baput Lord Irwin who was the voice Roy of India. But in sab ke beech mein just sab se zada highlighted cheez hain. Wo haa British Library me hain rakhi hu ek bohati important book which is Magna Carta. Bonus points to all those who know what Magna Carta is. Magna Carta is the first written constitution of Europe. Nehila constitution jo Europe me likha gayaata usse Magna Carta kaita hain. And iski bohati amazing se history hai jo aap chek kar sakte wiki video ye aur vi kisi bhi literary site pe. But Magna Carta ka original copy is there in the British Library and that is what makes it all the more special. At the centre of British Library you will find a transparent King's Library which is a six level glass cube structure which contains the collection of all the books that were with King George III. So it is basically King George III's personal book collection which is very huge and it might take one million year for anybody to read all of them. British Library also contains another phenomenal collection. So basically it's a collection of stamps and revenue stamps and it has been beautifully segregated and arranged as per the countries. So you will find a beautiful collection of all the revenue and postage stamps coming from all over the world from different ages in different centuries. By the way if you really you know get an opportunity to come here in the British Library and spend some time alone with books then you should consider getting a British Library reading pass. So this reader's pass will allow you to access the iconic reading rooms. Now the beautiful part about British Library is that there are 11 reading rooms and all these reading rooms together can accommodate around 1200 people. So 1200 reading desks are there and people can you know look at the online catalogue or the books and can read there for hours and hours. By the way when I was going through the British Library I also happened to cross by an exhibition on Hampi which talks about the photography and archaeology in southern India and you will not be amazed to know that in the British Library on the ground floor there is a running model of printing press that was invented by Johannes Gutenberg back then in 14th century. So if you happen to visit then do get your hands on the running model of the ancient printing press. Another interesting thing that you will spot at the British Library is the enigma machines that you will find in the Alan Turning Institute which is located right at the centre of the museum. Now what are these enigma machines? So enigma machines were the machines that were used by the Nazi soldiers to send messages across during the Second World War on the submarines and you will be surprised to know that these machines were captured by their rivals and Alan Turning was the person who used these machines to decode the secret German code and invent the first computer back then in 1940s and that led to the invention of the entire world of artificial intelligence and supercomputers. So with that note I would like to take your leave from the British Library at the same time before I move out of the library I'm also going to give you a very short tour of the beautiful gift shop where you will find amazing souvenirs as well as books that you can give to your loved ones who love reading and who are bookworms as to say. So with that note I would like to take your leave that's it from my side for this video lecture if you have any comments any suggestions or if you want me to explore any particular literary landmarks across the globe then please don't shy away and put that in the comment section below and if you like this video and if you like knowing about the first folio of William Shakespeare then please hit the like button and also subscribe to the channel that's it from my side for this video lecture I'll meet you very very soon in the next video lecture till the time we meet next happy learning keep loving literature and stay tuned to arpita karwad.com