Talking Positively Encouraged

Ahead of Britain’s first-ever Libraries Week, Linda Dearsley checks out what’s going on in the book world

When Britain’s first public lending library opened in Campfield, Manchester, in 1852, Charles Dickens, a huge celebrity of the time, was so impressed he dropped everything to attend the inaugural ceremony.

‘I take great pleasure in accepting the invitation,’ he wrote to the mayor, who had asked him to make a speech at the event. ‘My engagements are very numerous but this occasion is too important and the example too noble to admit hesitation.’