Morrab Library

I've been meaning to post about this place for awhile, one of my favorites from my last trip to England. The Morrab Library is a Georgian lending library of the precise sort that Austen heroines like Catherine Morland would have utilized, but remarkably, it's still functioning in its original purpose -- as a library.

Even more remarkably, it still has many of the books from back then, on the shelves and ready for readers. I was amazed to see some of the same books that I'd seen on the wired-off shelves of other great houses I'd visited, and very jealous of locals in Penzance, where the library is located, who can take out a membership and come here at any time. You are able to purchase a day pass, however, and I spent the morning there -- part of me wanted to blow off my plans for the rest of the day and just spend the entire day there, perusing various old books in this amazing atmosphere.

Even without lingering all day to read, I still enjoyed the library very much. You could almost feel the ghosts of young ladies there, muslin dresses swishing as they went from room to room, eagerly perusing the shelves in search of something new to read. Ooh, there is a new novel, by the author of Sense and Sensibility! Pride and Prejudice, is the name of it. I must certainly take this one out and give it a read.*

* The library was actually established in 1818, so it's not quite old enough for my little fantasy. But whatever, it's a fantasy! It certainly felt old enough.