Images of books and reading

Poet, bookseller and wigmaker Allan Ramsay’s shop was set up in 1726 in Edinburgh’s High Street. From The Works of Allan Ramsay, Vol. III, 1851 (National Library of Scotland reference: L.C.89)

Goettingen State and University Library, Founded 1734

Ladies at a circulating library, c.1800

A circulating library, from Poetical Sketches of Scarborough, 1813.

Too much reading? G.E. Madeley (fl. 1826-1841) after G. Spratt, The Circulating Library, ca. 1830.