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In 1840 Thomas Carlyle, the famous Scottish philosopher, polymath and slavery enthusiast, upset that the British Library wouldn’t let him take any books home, called for the establishment of a subscription library on the model already pioneered in Leeds and Nottingham. The result was the London Library, which moved to St. James’s Square in 1845 and, two major extensions and some light bombing later, it remains one of the best book collections in the world. St. James’s was your classic posh Georgian square where the houses were once owned by the landed gentry, but by now the torch had passed to multinationals, think tanks and gentlemen’s clubs.
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