The Pigmy Revels

A hand-coloured juvenile flap-book produced in 1773 on two separate copper-etched sheets telling the story tells of the elopement of Harlequin and Columbine.

Read more on our 101 Treasures page...

Victoria Bridge on a Saturday Night...

We have recently bought a large collection of street songs and ballads published in Manchester and the North West during the mid-nineteenth century. The collection was made by the antiquarian bookseller Robert Holt, who died in 1883, and contains over four hundred broadsides containing around 940 individual songs, many being in local dialect or relating to specific local characters and events. Read more on the website...

Manchester, so much to answer for...

Our new exhibition examines the way Manchester's history has been recorded over the centuries and the ways in which its civic pride and regional identity have developed, from the earliest maps and tourist guides to popular novels and songs. It encompasses a wide range of human histories, from chronicles of events to academic research on the nature of urban society, from polemics on harsh Victorian living conditions to songs celebrating the joys of living in 1980s Madchester.

Come and see the exhibition during normal opening hours (Monday to Friday, 9am-12.30 and 1.30pm-4.30).

Canons to the left of him!

We are delighted to announce that Chetham's Librarian Michael Powell has been made an Honorary Lay Canon of Manchester Cathedral and will be installed by the Dean at Evensong on Saturday 21st April. For more information, see the Manchester Cathedral News.

Getting stoned

Ironic perhaps that a Christian denomination famous for its commitment to temperance should have as an early proponent a gentleman named William Seward, who ended up getting stoned...

Of course all is not exactly as it seems. Seward's diary of 1740 is our featured 101 Treasure this week and has also been digitised in full and made available to view on the website. Find out more here.

Flowers on Friday

This week's 101 Treasures explores one of the Library's manuscript gems: Matthew Paris's Flores Historiarum, or Flowers of Histories, written in the mid-thirteenth century at St Albans. Find out more on the website.