Welcome to the Kate Sharpley Library

The Kate Sharpley Library exists to preserve and promote anarchist history. (More information.)

Everything at the Kate Sharpley Library - acquisitions, cataloguing, preservation work, publishing, answering enquiries is done by volunteers: we get no money from governments or the business community. All our running costs are met by donations from members of the collective, subscribers and supporters, or by the small income we make through publishing. Please consider donating and subscribing.

We also try to promote the history of anarchism by publishing studies based on those materials - or reprints of original documents taken from our collection. Check out our books and pamphlets available for sale or explore our online documents or browse back issues of our Bulletin.

Our physical library (in California) includes books, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts and ephemera documenting the history of anarchist movements. Contact us to arrange a visit.

Recent news

The Kate Sharpley Library wiki

We have a wiki (collaborative online workspace). Current projects include:
A listing of Freedom Press pamphlets (1889-1923)
Figures for Anarchist newspaper circulation   
Listing of who was at the International Revolutionary Socialist Conference, London 14-19 July 1881 (and also at the  International Conference of Revolutionary Socialists 1890, held at the Autonomie Club, 6 Windmill St, Tottenham Court Road on Sunday August 3, 1890)
US Anarchism 1886-1919 Bibliography
Plus "Still unanswered" (Who was the Russian agent in Barcelona that Krivitsky mentions?, and whatever happened to Guy Bowman?)

We are always interested in any research on anarchism and anarchists. Our hope is that the wiki will be a place where research is shared and chatted about.

http://katesharpleylibrary.pbworks.com/

London Anarchist Bookfair 2013

The 2013 London Anarchist Bookfair is coming up. It will be at Queen Mary’s, University of London on the Mile End Road. The date is Saturday 19th October from 10am to 7pm

More details at: www.anarchistbookfair.org.uk

See you there!

The Ateneu Enciclopèdic Popular (Barcelona): an injustice in need of repair

The Ateneu Enciclopèdic Popular was founded in Barcelona in 1902 and became a central part of the city's combative working class culture. For that reason their building was stolen and archives and library burnt by the victorious nationalists in 1939. 

You can read a manifesto giving a history of the Ateneu Enciclopèdic Popular at: http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/tx97ft

Please sign the petition in support of the Ateneu's campaign for a new building http://www.avaaz.org/es/petition/LAteneu_Enciclopedic_Popular_Una_injusticia_pendent_de_reparar/

Flavio Costantini, goodbye

The Kate Sharpley Library collective are sad to pass on news of the death of Flavio Costantini, anarchist artist who who succeed in capturing the spirit of an age. More details from Stuart Christie.

February 2013 Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin online

KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 73, February 2013 has just been posted on the site. You can get to the contents here or read the full pdf here.

This issue contains
Book Review – The Tragic Procession: Alexander Berkman and Russian Prisoner Aid, 1923-1931 (KSL/ABSC, 2010)
Helping Freedom
Books for cooks (and other workers)
Confronting Dostoevsky's Demons : Anarchism and the Specter of Bakunin in Twentieth-century Russia by James Goodwin [Book Review]
The Role of the Anarchists in the Russian Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921: A Case Study in Conspiratorial Party Behavior during Revolution. John W. Copp. Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1992
Siberian Makhnovshchina : Siberian Anarchists in the Russian Civil War (1918-1924) by Igor Podshivalov [Book Review]
March of the Anarchists
Alan Woodward 1939-2012
Georgette Kokoczinski (la mimosa)