
Explore literary treasures, everyday ephemera, and the complex history of the English language, with unique texts from the British Library collection.

Travel through the country in this website, and discover the UK’s rich landscape of diverse accents and dialects.
Enter Sounds Familiar?
![]() Changing LanguageSee how the English language has been altered, expanded, subverted and experimented with for hundreds of years. | ![]() Books for CooksRifle through six hundred years of recipes and remedies, from medieval potions and pies to 1920s cocktails. |
![]() Texts in ContextFrom recipes and adverts to logbooks and songs, explore the many ways in which language is used and produced. | ![]() Dictionaries and MeaningsTrace the history of dictionaries, from scoundrels’ slang books to Caribbean lexicons. | ![]() English LiteratureFrom Shakespeare to Alice, take a tour of some of the British Library’s finest literary treasures. |
Inspiring workshops and tours, using the exhibition to explore the connections between history, myth and faith and the relevance of the texts to modern Hinduism.
Calling all English language students: help us collect the young voices of the 'naughties'