A Quiet Place to Read

If you want to surprise a bookish young lady
who is working in Central London

and needs somewhere quiet to go at lunchtime
where she can curl up in a comfortable chair

or maybe the chance to flick through
the newspapers and periodicals

you should purchase a gift subscription
to the London Library in St. James's Square.

It was founded in 1841 by Thomas Carlyle
and the list of illustrious members is impressive.

I like to think of MissM going through the front door
behind George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling,
Arthur Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard,
E.M. Forster, T.S. Eliot,
Virginia Woolf and Agatha Christie.

all images by Sylvia Lewes (1935)
© The London Library