For more than 100 years, clergy, scholars and ordinary people have spent their days studying and their nights sleeping in this unique institution.
Minutes after I crossed from England into Wales, my GPS announced a turn down a quiet lane in the village of Hawarden, and my bibliophile heart began to race. What awaited me, I hoped, would be the closest earthly incarnation of the library from Beauty and the Beast:, a literary oasis founded by former prime minister William Gladstone in 1889 and designed so that lovers of learning couldn't just consult his collection of 20,000 books, but sleep alongside them.
Indeed, Gladstone's original idea of a live-in library was inextricably entwined with his deeply held Christian faith. In fact, for most of its life, the library has mainly hosted theological scholars and clergy. The library's relationship with the Church was formalised in the latter half of the 20th Century, when it became a training centre for ordinands, only to diminish by the 1990s when the Church withdrew.
Gladstone's original collection still maintains this unique organisation, but some new acquisitions, such as the library's texts of Islamic faith and culture, now incorporate the Dewey Decimal System.Today, Gladstone's Library draws book lovers to its hallowed halls with activities ranging from self-publishing workshops to weekend seminars on the Victorian idea of heaven to, which bills itself as"the UK's friendliest literary festival".
Despite my natural introversion, I took a seat at a table bearing a plastic"shared" sign and was joined by Russell and two other guests: a woman attending a weeklong Latin intensive course, and a repeat visitor here to research his next book. Before long, we were discussing protests in Paris and comparing international approaches to health insurance. It was a testament to the way Gladstone himself liked to start his day.
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