The British Museum is a museum in London, founded in 1753. It contains one of the world's richest collections of antiquities and (until 1997) one of the largest libraries in the world: British Library.

The British Museum's collection of seven million objects representing the rich history of human cultures mirrors the city of London's global variety. It includes monuments of primitive and antique culture, Ancient East culture, the richest collection of engravings, pictures, ceramics, coins.



The British Museum library is now named the British national library. It was formed in 1973 from the British Museum library and other national collections. It has a copy of every book that is printed in the English language, so that there are more than six million books there. They receive nearly two thousand books and papers daily. The British Museum Library has a very big collection of printed books and manuscripts, both old and new. You can see beautifully illustrated old manuscripts which they keep in glass cases. You can also find there some of the first English books printed by Caxton. Caxton was a printer who lived in the fifteenth century. He made the first printing-press in England. In the reading-room of the British Museum many famous men have read and studied. Charles Dickens, a very popular English writer and the author of 'David Copperfield', 'Oliver Twist', 'Dombey and Son' and other books, spent a lot of time in the British Museum Library.

In no other museum can the visitor see so clearly the history of what it is to be human.

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