Our University Library and Collections have loaned literary items to the National Portrait Gallery (NPG). The books are travelling with the Writers Revealed touring exhibition to Busan, South Korea and Shanghai, China.
The items on loan include:
Our first edition of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, donated to the university in 1955 by David Ramage the then University Librarian responsible for the restoration of Cosin’s library in the mid twentieth century.
The 1798 edition of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano from one of the university’s founding historic libraries, donated by Martin Routh. This autobiographical book tells the story of Olaudah and offers profound insights into his first-hand experiences of the horrors of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and his journey to freedom.
A page from our handwritten working copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem ‘Savonarola’ part of Casa Guidi Windows published in 1851. Set in the Casa Guidi in Florence where the Barrett Browning’s lived, it is an evocation of the “agitation for democratic governance and unification culminating in the revolutions” in Italy at the time.
Our collections
Durham University provides research access to over eight miles of archives, manuscript and special book collections. The archives and special collections include over 70,000 books published before 1850, medieval manuscripts, maps, prints and photographs.
Writers Revealed
The Writers Revealed exhibition explores six centuries of world-famous portraits and rare manuscripts from literary legends.
It features some of the most well-known figures in English literature, the exhibition will feature literary giants such as William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, Sir Kazuo Ishiguro and Zadie Smith.
Alongside the portraits, the exhibition includes intimate handwritten manuscripts, letters and illustrations, as well as rare, published editions of the writers’ works.
The touring exhibition is in Busan from September 2025 and in Shanghai from February 2026.
Exhibition organised by National Portrait Gallery, London; developed in collaboration with the British Library. With special thanks to Blackie House Library and Museum, Durham University, Peter Harrington Rare Books, Senate House Library, University of Leeds, University of Nottingham, Wisbech and Fenland Museum and Wordsworth Trust.
Find out more
/prod01/prodbucket01/media/durham-university/central-news-and-events-images/83431-1920X290.jpg)