Kensington Central Library – February 2013

Kensington Central Library

We thought we’d use the picture of Kensington Central Library in the snow again as it was snowing a little last week- really it was an excuse to use this picture again!

Our Six Book Challenge display

Have you heard about the Six Book Challenge? This is taking place in all six of our libraries and is aimed at anyone who wishing to improve their reading or would like to read more. There’s more information about the challenge on The Reading Agency’s website.

If you’d like to take part you can register at any of our libraries in Kensington and Chelsea. You complete six reads and record your reading in a diary which we provide. There are incentives along the way to encourage you to keep reading, after two reads a free CD loan and three reads a free DVD loan. If you complete by 28 June 2013 you can enter the national prize draw for a trip to London with a friend to see a show and £150 spending money. We also have a local draw for completers at the end of the summer for two Sony e-readers.

Lots of exciting things have been happening here since the last time we blogged so I’ll hand over to some of the staff here to tell you more.

Jodie Green

Jodie Green

Lending Librarian

A magical storytime

Storyteller Helen East in action!

On Monday 28 January, a magical storytime happened here with storyteller, Helen East. She guided parents and children alike though a fairy tale of Queen Mary II’s desire of a little a girl to love.

Having a go with the props

Through the use of excellent props and music Helen engaged the children’s imagination and provided a unique hands-on storytelling experience.

The children loved looking at the props

Following on from the theme of the story was a craft session making happy Queen Mary II finger puppets, with fabric feathers and felts, which the children could take home to act out their own stories.

Making finger puppets

This session was arranged with staff from Kensington Palace, Natalie Cain and Joy Drury to celebrate National Storytelling Week- there’s more information about this week on the Society for Storytelling’s website. Many thanks to them for doing this and for taking the amazing photos!

Gemma Baker

Gemma Baker

Senior Customer Services Assistant

Savage Continent

Author Keith Lowe

On the 31 January we had acclaimed author, Keith Lowe giving a very informative talk here around his latest novel Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II.

He showed some slides to illustrate some of the key moments in his book – such as the rampant chaos that ensued between the Second World War ending and the beginning of the Cold War. There was time after the talk for questions and the audience took the opportunity to ask questions about the war crimes trials and how the Cold War played a part in bringing these trials to an end.

To find out more, why not borrow a copy of Keith’s book from one of our libraries? There’s also more information on Keith Lowe’s website.

Savage Continent by Keith Lowe

And if you’d like to attend any of events- just take a look at our what’s on page to see what’s coming up. We have events with Neil Mckenna and Jessica Fellowes coming up soon- get a ticket soon!

Mike Green

Mike Green

Senior Customer Services Assistant

National Libraries Day

National Libraries Day logo

Saturday 9 February was National Libraries Day and to celebrate we had a special children’s story and craft event based on Chinese New Year.

Amal and Emma getting the Chinese snakes ready

Since we were saying hello to the Year of the Snake we made fun spirally snakes! The children had great fun decorating their snakes with glitter, sequins, stickers and googly eyes!

A shaky snake!

We gathered a collection of stories with snakes in and Bochra (who’s doing work experience with us at the moment) read a few of these to the children. The children really enjoyed looking at the pictures in these books which inspired them when they were making their spirally snakes.

Bochra helping decorate a Chinese snake

Amal Sakr and Emma Marsh

Senior Customer Services Assistants

Empty Spaces part 2: the writing on the floor

Dave Walker, our Local Studies Librarian has been documenting the changes at Kensington Central Library. You can catch up with his first piece, Empty Spaces.

Dave is the author of our extremely popular blog, The Library Time Machine – do take a look as it showcases some of the amazing photos we have in our archive.  So over to Dave again….

For the second of these looks at the refurbishment of Kensington Central Library we go down to the ground floor. This is the former counter area with all the old furniture cleared out.

And here’s a tall window, much loved by our Planning and Conversation department.

And three windows which I quite like.

There were no plans to do anything especially creative with the concrete floor but some drilling had to be done and the contractors had a problem – they didn’t know exactly where all the cables and pipes under the floor were. So one weekend some specialists came in and x-rayed the area.

The colour coded marks indicate the presence of water and gas pipes, electrical conduits and ley lines (possibly).

There are also some messages, some of them easy enough to figure out (if you’re an electrician).

Others simple and enigmatic.

Others look like pictograms.

The first piece of equipment to enter the space was the sorter, which was carefully assembled before any further work was done. (The sorter is used by the public when returning their library items.)

Here’s a book’s eye view.

The writing is now covered over with carpet tiles, but it’s still there. At some time in your next visit to the library you may be standing on this.

Will you experience a sudden urge to change direction?

Dave Walker

Dave Walker, Local Studies Librarian

Kensington Central Library

The Brompton Blog – February 2013

Brompton Library

Welcome to the latest edition of our blog. We have been exceptionally busy since the start of the year with a range of events and activities that appeal to all ages across the community and a constant influx of new members and regulars making our library a popular hub of learning and enjoyment for the community.  

A special storytime

The week of 28 January to 2  February was National Storytelling Week (more information is available from the Society for Storytelling’s website) and to celebrate that Kensington Palace have been telling stories and giving craft sessions at some of our libraries throughout the week. Parents and children who came to any of those sessions were rewarded at Kensington Palace with a special performance of all the stories on the Saturday and reduced price entrance to the palace itself. This was all possible due to the partnership we have built up with our Outreach & Community Involvement colleagues at the palace over the last two years.

At Brompton Library we had a full house, our best turnout ever for a storytime, and that was before a local nursery turned up with 16 children!

Helen East, storyteller from Kensington Palace in full swing!

Helen, the storyteller, managed not to tread on anyone while keeping the kids and adults enthralled with the help of glove and finger puppets, an African drum and some strangely coloured eggs! We’d all love to have Helen back for another special storytime. And after the story came the craft!

Children making finger puppets.

With a little help from their parents and carers the children then made their own finger puppets from press-out templates supplied by the palace and showed a concentration and attention span never before seen (not by me, anyway!)

Saturday Storyland

Brompton Library’s Saturday Storyland sessions have an increasing number of dads bringing and participating with their children. We started Saturday Storyland on 27 October and ten children and eight adults attended that very first session. Three of the adults were dads. More and more dads are coming along now and it’s great to see them engaging with their children.

Stephanie Webb

Stephanie Webb

Lending Librarian

National Libraries Day

National Libraries Day logo

So far February has been really busy with events for adults and children. On National Libraries Day we launched our new monthly craft session (11am every first Saturday of the month following on from Saturday Storyland) and as it was the Chinese New Year we had a story about the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac and worked out which animal was the year we were born. We celebrated the Year of the Snake and the kids loved making Chinese lanterns with crepe paper and brilliant, curly snakes. We also coloured in Chinese New Year snake pictures.

Chinese New Year crafts

We are already looking forward to next month’s craft event!

Later the same day we had a visit from the “Orbirailists” – Hilary Chittenden and Victoria Foster (from Celebrate My Library) spent National Libraries Day visiting ten libraries all accessible on the new London Overground orbital train line! We were glad they made it to Brompton Library as we were the last port of call but Senior Customer Services Assistant, Katie and myself made them very welcome and they even mentioned us on Twitter! They tweeted the picture below to their followers.

Love Libraries display at Brompton Library

Elisabeth Brown

Elisabeth Brown

Senior Customer Services Assistant

Chatterbooks

Babita, another of our Senior Customer Service Assistants led her February Chatterbooks group on 11 February and, as ever, found some innovative things for them to do to illustrate their enthusiasm for the books they’ve read.

Chatterbooks is a huge success with the children in Brompton library; always buzzing with creative children wanting to share their ideas. This reading club encourages them to read books, write reviews, recommend the books to each other and on top of everything chatting a lot (ha ha ha!). Most of the time the children themselves select a theme for their next meeting. This month the group decided to write about favourite books, authors and characters on paper leaves and stuck them on a paper tree. They were so enthusiastic that they drew pictures of their favourite characters as well. Then they displayed it on the Chatterbooks wall in the children’s library.

Chatterbooks display

In our next Chatterbooks session which is on Monday 11 March the children will be bringing one friend along. We love Chatterbooks as much as the children do and it’s great for them and other customers to see their creativity displayed in the library! (We have Chatterbooks in some of other libraries- more informaion is available on our website)

Babita Sinha

Babita Sinha

Senior Customer Services Assistant

Authors We Love: Ursula Le Guin

Ursula Le Guin (Photo by Dan Tuffs/Getty Images)

 Last week, my husband and I were discussing audio books choices as he is taking his nephew on a long road-trip oop north. Aside from my nominations of Riordan, Morpugo and Horowitz, one author who my husband was keen to introduce to him was one from his own childhood: Ursula Le Guin, and her rather enjoyable Earthsea collection of fantasy books.

Son of a prominent anthropologist, Le Guin and her brother discovered sci-fi at the age of 11 which they both considered rather corny. It was when she was in her thirties that she came under its spell and led her to create the world of Earthsea, which begins with A Wizard of Earthsea, a motherless child who finds that he has magical powers. To my mind, it is a better imagined world than Harry Potter and a beautiful canon of work.

The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

 It was probably her interests in Greek mythology and folklore that Le Guin wrote (much later) Lavinia, a barely written character in Vergil’s Aeneid which came out as her recent adult novel. Le Guin is able to revive a real breadth of life and character into Lavinia and recreates a world in which she exists that is well drawn.

 So these are just two examples of why Ursula Le Guin is a great writer and an underrated one: for half a century she has been prolific in adult and children’s fiction, short-stories, essays and poems. To me she is up there with the likes of Margaret Atwood and Donna Tartt – female authors who are able to devise dark and powerful story-telling and who push the boundaries of creativity.

 We have plenty of Ursula Le Guin books in our libraries including the Earthsea series, so come and check them out!

Katie Collis

 Katie Collis

Senior Customer Services Assistant

A Love Story from Kensington Palace

Kensington Palace (© Historic Royal Palaces)

This is a guest blog post from Sutherland Forsyth from Kensington Palace. We regularly work with staff from the palace on events for adults and children in our libraries.

To celebrate Valentine’s Day Sutherland tells us about one of the greatest love stories in history.

‘My dearest Albert put on my stockings for me. I went in and saw him shave; a great delight for me.’

Queen Victoria, 13 February 1840

Oooh-er – that’s a bit racy! A gentleman running his hand up a lady’s leg, her sneaking in to watch him as he gets ready….can this really be the prim, proper, grand old Queen Victoria – dressed in black with a scowl on her face – with whom we are all so familiar?

The answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

Statue of Queen Victoria outside Kensington Palace, sculpted by her daughter Princess Louise (© Historic Royal Palaces)

Queen Victoria was always a woman of passion: strong-willed and spirited as a girl, confident in her role as monarch, and loving as a wife to her husband Albert. The relationship between Victoria and Albert was one of history’s great love stories, and it started on the Stone Staircase at Kensington Palace on 18 May, 1836 when her cousin Albert arrived to visit her and her mother. She felt an instant attraction to him, and over the next few years they corresponded regularly.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s portraits on display at Kensington Palace (© Historic Royal Palaces)

After marrying in 1840, Victoria and Albert went on to have nine children, 39 grandchildren and over 1,000 other descendants. There was deep affection as well as mutual respect between this royal couple, and when Albert died at the age of 42 from typhoid fever in 1861, it left Victoria devastated, plunging her into a state of mourning which would last until her dying day, over four decades later.

Victoria’s mourning clothes on display in ‘Victoria Revealed’ at Kensington Palace (© Historic Royal Palaces)

People remain fascinated by Victoria and Albert’s love affair. When I speak to community groups, run projects with them or take them to Kensington Palace as part of my job as an Outreach & Community Involvement Officer at Historic Royal Palaces (the charity which looks after the public side of the palace), it is striking how some of the small details of their story really strike a chord. There may be well over a hundred years separating us from them, but the emotion of their story still resonates today.

Sutherland Forsyth

Sutherland Forsyth is the Outreach & Community Involvement Officer for Adults at Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity which cares for the State Apartments at Kensington Palace

Find out more…

• Discover this royal love story in a question series of beautiful animated films by Chiara Ambrosio on the Historic Royal Palace’s website.
• If you want to find out more about Victoria’s life you can visit Kensington Palace and see her story told in her own words and through objects which once belonged to her – from her wedding dress to her stockings, her paint set to her jewellery in the Victoria Revealed exhibition.
• Take a look inside Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee scrapbook, created by the Royal Archives as an online resource.
• Kensington Central Library’s biography collection has books about Victoria, Albert and other members of the royal family.

Valentine’s Day – as reported by the Illustrated London News

The Illustrated London News – masthead

I’m sure it couldn’t have escaped anyone’s notice that it’s Valentine’s Day this week. One of our Triborough Reference Librarians, Debby Wale, has been looking at how this day has been covered in the past.

Looking at the month of February, traditionally  associated with Valentine’s Day on 14th February, I looked through Kensington Central Reference Library’s holdings of the The Illustrated London News.

The  library has copies of the  The Illustrated London News from 1842 to 2000.  This publication is probably best described by the Encyclopedia Britannica.

A magazine of news and the arts, published in London, a forerunner in the use of various graphic arts. It was founded as a weekly in 1842 by Herbert Ingram, and it became a monthly in 1971. It was London’s first illustrated periodical, the first periodical to make extensive use of woodcuts and engravings and the first to use photographs.

As well as serious news, The Illustrated London News had lighter articles and poems. Today, folk often complain that Valentine’s Day has become over commercialised. Looking back to 1877, we see that there were indeed a large choice of Valentine cards.

This pretty child who seems to be taking counsel from her doll – which shall I choose?

Image from The Illustrated London News, 1877

As always, there are Great Expectations from the postman on Valentine’s Day….

Image from The Illustrated London News, 11 February 1882

The customary sending and receiving of pretty love-tokens becomes the occasion of a little playful excitement among the children, especially the girls below their ‘teens’

In 1868, another rush to the door, to see what the postman brings.

‘Valentine’s Day’ drawn by G.H.Thomas, 1868

And from The Illustrated London News 11 February 1899.

Image from The Illustrated London News, 11 February 1899

The ancient festival of St Valentine, of which poor Ophelia sang, has, in recent years, fallen into neglect; but although outward observance of the day may be slight, our Artist seems to be persuaded that, as the old verse has it, “Cupid still calls at a pretty girl’s door”

From the same issue February 1899 – Mardi Gras in Paris, 14 February.

On Mardi Gras (Shrove Tuesday) in Paris the Carnival is at it’s height. Holiday-makers pelt each other with confetti until the street are ankle deep in the paper snow. The  police insist that every handful shall be freshly thrown and of one colour, and that no confetti to be picked up.

Paris, of course, being the city for lovers.

Image from The Illustrated London News, 11 February 1899

The course of  true love doesn’t always run smooth, as illustrated in a cartoon from February 13 1886 by S T Dodd.

Cartoon by S.T. Dodd from The Illustrated London News, 13 February 1886

As the text is too small for you to read, I’ve copied out some of it for you.

Young Smithers invests in an expensive valentine to send to his adored, Miss Jones.

 He directs the same, putting his initials in the corner that she may know it’s from him.

 Her Maiden Aunt, another Miss Jones, at the same address, takes unto herself the Valentine with rapture.

 The day afer, Smithers calls, his adored is cold and distant, her Aunt effusive…

You can guess the rest, but on hearing of her mistake, the Aunt swoons!Smithers explains the situation to his Adored, and the “affair terminates in the usual manner” Miss Matilda Jones becomes Mrs William Smithers.

In an edition from 1900 two take A Spin on Valentine’s Day.

A spin on Valentine’s Day, 10 February 1990

But of course, ultimately, diamonds really are a girl’s best friend. Just in time for Valentines day in February 1905 – The Discovery of the World’s Biggest Diamond, 29 Times Bigger Than the Koh-I-Noor. Discovered at the Premier Mine Johannesburg, weighing 3032 carats, the new diamond is compared with other famous gems.

The world’s biggest diamond!

Speaking of jewels, come along to Kensington Central Reference Library and see The Illustrated London News for yourself – just one of our many treasures!

Debby Wale

Debby Wale, Triborough Reference Librarian

Chelsea Reference Library

Further information

• Kensington Central Reference Library has almost the complete holdings of The Illustrated London News in their store.
• The Encyclopedia Britannica can be accessed via our reference and information web page. You’ll need a Kensington and Chelsea library card to access this.
• Westminster City Libraries has electronic access to The Illustrated London News via Westminster City Libraries website. You’ll need at Westminster Libraries card to access this.

Happy 4th birthday to Book Break!

This is a guest blog post by Megg Hewlett, Project Worker for Get Into Reading London. Over the last four years she has established and run the Book Break reading groups in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

Enjoy a book with a cup of a tea!

It’s four years since the first Book Break shared reading groups began in Kensington and Chelsea. Since then we’ve read with people in many settings including libraries, hospitals, mental health services, schools, alcohol and drug services, community centres and workplaces.

Book Break is delivered by The Reader Organisation, an award-winning social enterprise working to connect people with great literature and each other, in partnership with Kensington and Chelsea libraries. There’s more information about Get Into Reading and The Reader Organisation on their website.

The Reader Organisation’s logo

We create places where personal responses to books are freely shared. Our projects allow us to reach a diverse range of people, readers and non readers, extending the individual experience of literature and building strong mutually supportive communities that read together.

“You need it, you just don’t know you need it.”

Book Break groups are stimulating, friendly and non-pressured. They provide stability, support and enjoyment. All texts are read aloud so anyone can get involved – readers and non readers alike.

Enjoying sharing the same story

Groups are led by trained project workers and volunteers, meeting each week to read books and poems together in locations such as care homes, libraries, prisons, mental health centres, community centres, schools, hostels, refugee centres and workplaces. We read aloud, slowly, taking time over each text, allowing thoughts, connections and understanding to emerge.

“It’s not just about reading or getting to know the story. It’s about having our opinions about things as well.”

Members can choose to join in, or not, and at times the reading will stop to allow some talk about parts of the text, discussing what it might mean, or reflect on similar experiences of their own. The effects are subtle, and profound.

“Sometimes you can see different people having different ideas. You take something one way and someone else might take it a different way, and it makes you think. You respect other people’s opinions.”

A relaxed, friendly atmosphere is created in each group. Over time, people build up a confidence that enables them to tell their own stories, as well as to forge close relationships with fellow readers.

Reading along with the story

For some readers, this prompts new aspirations, and the searching out of further learning and support that will help rebuild their lives. For others, their reading group is a lifeline, helping to keep them on a more even keel. For all, it is a regular lift each week.

“It sets me up for the week”

Want to join one of our Book Break groups? Full details of when are where the groups meet can be found on the bibliotherapy page on Kensington and Chelsea libraries’ website. You can also contact me on megghewlett@thereader.org.uk

Megg Hewlett 

Project Worker, Get Into Reading London

Blog post from the North – January / February 2013

North Kensington Library

What’s going on in the North?

January has been a very busy month for us at North Kensington Library with planning and launching the Six Book Challenge which is taking place in all our libraries. The challenge is aimed at anyone who wishing to improve their reading or would like to read more. There’s more information about the Six Book Challenge on The Reading Agency’s website.

Six Book Challenge display at North Kensington Library

If you wish to take part in the Six Book Challenge you can register at any of our libraries in Kensington and Chelsea. You complete six reads and record your reading in a diary which we provide. There are incentives along the way to encourage you to keep reading, after two reads a free CD loan and three reads a free DVD loan. If you complete by 28 June 2013 you can enter the national prize draw for a trip to London (I know, we are there already) with a friend to see a show and £150 spending money. We also have a local draw for completers at the end of the summer for two Sony e-readers.

Six Book Challenge display at Notting Hill Gate Library

You can read anything (e.g. a book, poem, graphic novel or magazine article including e Books) but we have books in our Quick Reads and Skills for Life collections which are particularly suitable.

Sewing and craft books by Eithne Farry

On 24 January Eithne Farry, author of ‘Yeah! I made it myself’ and ‘Lovely things to make for girls of slender means’ led a workshop at North Kensington Library. She demonstrated how to make decorative hair bands and ‘Fascinations’ using cheap and recycled materials. If you are interested in crafts and recycling/ remodling old clothes we have books, including Eithne’s, in all our libraries.

Eithne Farry in action at the craft event

Eithne will be running a workshop for young people (aged 11-15) in our children’s library at North Kensington Library Wednesday 20 February 2pm to 4pm- do come along if you can!

Gaynor Lynch

Gaynor Lynch

Lending Librarian, North Kensington Library

Improved stock display at Kensal Library

Kensal Library

‘Small is beautiful’ and ‘less is more’ are phrases we often use when talking about things on a reduced scale. Small can also be a great challenge but for creative people like Ruth Gutteridge, Senior Customer Services Assistant at Kensal Library, this is not a problem. She has given the stock at Kensal Library a much needed makeover to improve display and create additional space for the children’s and young adult collections. Ruth explains the changes she has made.

We have expanded the junior area making it easier for the children to browse the shelves and find what they are looking for. The early readers, junior and teenage fiction all now have their own shelving areas. This means that we now have much more room to display both new stock and our more popular junior titles.

Studying and relaxing at Kensal Library

Our junior non- fiction has moved next to the junior study tables. This is more accessible and makes it much easier when the children are researching for their homework. We have some excellent new books in this area from the dinosaurs to space travel!

In the adult area crime fiction continues to be very popular. We have responded to customer demand by creating a special designated crime section which also brings Kensal Library in to line with the practice at the other libraries in the ‘Triborough’ area. We have also given talking books (stories on CD) and crime fiction a more prominent position at the beginning of the adult fiction.

Enjoying the new reading area at Kensal Library

We have new books coming in each week so don’t forget to check the ‘New Books’ displays both at the entrance and it their designated section.

Ruth Gutteridge

Senior Customer Services Assistant, Kensal Library

‘Things Fall Apart’ at Notting Hill Gate Library

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Notting Hill Gate Library’s Reading Group recently read and discussed Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

A fascinating book that opens a window into the Ibo African Tribe, which is now South Eastern Nigeria in the late 1800s, early 1900s. Chinua Achebe expertly writes about their customs, language, beliefs, superstitions and the conflicts faced within their own tribes and with the white missionaries.

Things Fall Apart we all agreed was an easy read but Chinua Achebe included many of the Ibo proverbs and even used the Ibo language for many words so at times it could be a little confusing but we believe in doing so he preserved the essence of the Ibo culture.

Prior to reading the novel we all thought it would follow the normal attitude towards colonisation, but we were rather surprised and all commented on how Chinua Achebe had kept quite a neutral ground, exploiting the weaknesses from both sides so the reader may then ask their own questions and come to their own conclusions.

Chinua Achebe wrote this in response to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. This book was also read by the group last year so it was great to draw similarities and comparisons between the two.

We also were very lucky to have three members of the group who had lived with the Ibo tribe in the 1950s, so of course we wanted to know everything!!

Ihssan Dhimi

Ihssan Dhimi

Senior Cutomer Services Assistant, Notting Hill Gate Library

Pride and Prejudice – adaptations

As part of our celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride and Prejudice, one of our Triborough Stock Librarian, Elin Jones has written about the various adaptations of this wonderful book.

The Pride and Prejudice BBC TV adaptation in 1995 has gone a long way in marketing the 1813 wonderfully romantic Jane Austen novel.

Here are a few facts around the series.

1.The Dialogue for Pride and Prejudice

Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett

On learning the script for the TV series, Jennifer Ehle who played the part of Elizabeth Bennet said:

It’s the hardest dialogue I’ve ever had to learn. Shakespeare is a doddle compared to Jane Austen. I think this is essentially because the sense of the line comes at the end of it and also the lines are much longer. When I get to the end of a sentence I usually say, “Oh, I see!” and then I have to go back and read it again. Sometimes the thoughts are quite convoluted – you do all these hairpin bends – so it takes some getting used to. But it’s like anything – by the end I found it much easier to learn. It’s like learning another language.

 (There’s more information on the Jennifer Ehle blog.)

2. Production

Pride and Prejudice was a  six-hour, one million pounds per episode production: an estimated 40 million Brits watched as the book was brought to life in 1995.

3. The Hero

Colin Firth as Mr Darcy

The perfect Regency hero, Colin Firth, shot to fame in his role as Mr Darcy. You need go no further than the lake scene to realise his suitability for the role! The Guardian called it ‘one of the most unforgettable moments in British TV history’

Colin Firth felt he was the last person who should play the part. He thought he just wasn’t sexy enough, and had major doubts about his ability to bring the character to life. He said:

You really can’t walk into a room and start acting your socks off, and doing all sorts of ambitious things, because Darcy wouldn’t do that. But not doing anything is one of the most difficult things about acting.

It was the scripts that made Colin change his mind. There’s more information about this on the BBC website.

Other actors who have played the role include Lawrence Olivier, Matthew McFayden, Peter Cushing, Patrick Macnee (!) and David Rintoul, whilst Greer Garson and Keira Knightley have embraced the role of Elizabeth Bennett.

In the second annual Regency Awards, held by the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, Colin Firth’s 1995 portrayal of Mr Darcy received more than half of all votes cast.

What modern day Darcy would you like to see in the role? Let us know in the comments section below!

4. The Adaptation

Andrew Davis adapted the book for TV, and went on to do Vanity Fair and Sense and Sensibility as well as writing the screenplay for Middlemarch and collaborating on the screenplay for both Bridget Jones films.

5. The Music

Carl Davis wrote the music score for the series and used Beethoven’s septet in E Flat Major, Opus 20 as the inspiration for his music. The Barley Mow was used as dance music.

6.The Setting

Lyme Park in Cheshire was used for the filming of Pride and Prejudice.

7. Further Films and Books

As well as the Bridget Jones offshoots where Colin Firth ‘reprised’ the role of Darcy, there are other films and books that have emerged or have connections to the original novel.

Lost in Austen

Lost in Austen, a mini TV series about Amanda Price (Jemima Rooper), a devoted Jane Austen fan, unsatisfied with her life and relationship in modern day London. Her very ordinary existence is changed forever when she discovers Elizabeth Bennet (Gemma Arterton) in her bathroom and ends up replacing her in the ‘real’ fictional world of Pride and Prejudice.

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

Death comes to Pemberley,  a P.D. James murder mystery set six years after the marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth.

The Pemberley Chronicles by Rebecca Ann Collins

The Pemberley Chronicles by Rebecca Ann Collins – a sequel to Pride and Prejudice.

My So-Called Life by Joanna Nadin

And Pride and Prejudice even stretches to My So-Called Life: the Diary of Rachel Riley by Joanna Nadin – the main character’s adopted dog eats her Pride and Prejudice boxed collection!

All of these adaptations, sequels etc are available to borrow from our libraries – have a look on our catalogue. We also have as well a great many other Austen classics and BBC TV classics.

If you want to go the extra mile – there is a copy of The Making of Pride and Prejudice by Susie Conklin and Sue Birtwistle in Westminster Reference Library.

Elin Jones

Elin Jones

Triborough Stock Librarian