Blog del Instituto Cervantes de Londres

In 2012 one of the most important libraries on Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula open to the public in the United Kingdom, the Canning House library, closed its doors to the public.

Most of its more than 50,000 volumes became part of the King’s College Library. A small collection was donated to the library of the Institute Cervantes in London.

The total number of holdings donated to our library was 1,135 and they cover a wide range of topics: travel books on Spain and Latin America, biographies of historical figures, translations of literature from Spanish into English, books on the history of Spain and Latin America, art books and literary criticism.

From those 1,135 holdings, there are 75 old books dating from the eighteenth century to 1899 and dealing with various topics such as the Chronicles on the War of Spanish Succession, the War of Independence, Gibraltar, on the invincible Armada, explorations and trips. to different Latin American countries, History of Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, on the conquest of Peru, the biography of Hernán Cortés and that of Nelson, among others.

There is also a Quixote in 4 volumes from 1896, an edition of Garcilaso de la Vega’s work from 1823 and an edition of Gaucho Martín Fierro from 1897.

The cataloguing of these holdings was carried out between October and December 2021.

Access the complete catalogue  here