Fantasy: Realms of Imagination
The British Library Exhibition

27th October 2023 – 25th February 2024
St Pancras, London, Great Britain

By Jonathan Cowie: This new exhibition at the British Library explores the evolution of Fantasy. From ancient folk tales and fairy stories, gothic horror and weird fiction, to live action role-playing games inspired by Fantasy worlds, the exhibition celebrates the genre and its enduring impact…

First off, a word about the British Library.  It is Britain’s national library and also one of the six British Isles copyright depository centres: Britain has had legal deposit of all published works at least as since 1610. This means that every book published in the British Isles (including the Republic of Ireland) that has an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) or magazine & newspaper that has an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number), among others, are deposited with the British Library (though much is stored in a depository in York).

As such, the British Library is the UK’s equivalent of the US’s Library of Congress and the two rival each other in size. Truth be told, no-one knows which is bigger, what is known is that the British Library holds the second largest collection of pornography in the world: the largest, of course, is held by the Vatican (you knew that didn’t you?).

The exhibition itself contained over a hundred items – including historical manuscripts, rare first editions, drafts of iconic novels, scripts and maps, film props and costumes – that offer rare insights into the roots and evolution of the genre.

The afore term, ‘rare’, is used judiciously as many of the exhibits are decades old: some centuries old. And so the exhibits are held in a windowless, basement floor. This gives visitors the feeling that they are going through some sort of dungeons and dragons set, but actually, there is purposeful functionality behind this. With some exhibits many decades old, some even centuries, some display items need to be protected from too much light and all the glass cases have temperature and humidity monitors.

The displays themselves were arranged within fantastical sets, beginning with an illuminated forest scene (Mythago Wood anyone?) and decorative lighting along with a welcoming, illuminated, introductory text display.

Having said that, many of the exhibition sections were well lit with appropriate, colourful backdrops along the walls.

Of course being the British Library – with the emphasis on ‘Library’ – there were plenty of books on display, including: Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, C. S Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, The Magic City by E. Nesbit, The Owl Service by Alan Garner and The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett.

One of the more rare exhibits was a book of text fragments dating from the late 10th to early 11th century of Beowulf. This classic Old English epic poem is set against a time of war. The story itself centres around the hero Beowulf who battles the monster Grendel, Grendel’s mother and a dragon. In his last fight, Beowulf, now an old man, over-reaches himself. In the fragment (see above), he kills the dragon but is himself mortally wounded.

The exhibition drew together a number of themes (more of which later) and connections. Here, with Beowulf, a line was drawn from that Saxon epic to The Game of Thrones TV series and book, with the Beowulf fragments being displayed in the same cabinet as a 2019 Folio Society edition of A Game of Thrones and a licensed replica of the sword Needle as used by Arya Stark who, across the series, transformed from a carefree tomboy to skilled assassin. I’m guessing George R. R. Martin would approve?

But it was not all books; there were costumes from TV, film and even ballet as evidenced by a display of Margot Fonteyn’s and Rudolf Nureyev’s The Sleeping Beauty costumes (Princess Aurora and Prince Florimund respectively) from their 1968 production of Tchaikovsky’s ballet. (This exhibit was kindly provided by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. See below.)

Beyond themes and connections from exhibits displayed together as well as side-by-side, the exhibition was also divided into sections. Visitors begin entering a section called ‘Fairy and Folk Tales’ that takes us from The Snow Queen to The Arabian Nights and Peter Pan to discover how different cultures shape their own, iconic legends. Highlights included items from the Angela Carter archive and maps by Lewis for Narnia.

From there it was straight into ‘Epics and Quests’, to meet heroes and villains from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to Xena, Warrior Princess, and explore how ancient tales have helped to shape modern Fantasy epics. On display was a version of Gilgamesh, which some say is the oldest known epic story as it is thought to have originated from the Akkadian empire some 4,000 years ago!  Gilgamesh being a semi-divine, Sumerian king who abuses his gifts of strength and bravery to abuse his people. The gods therefore create the wild man, Enkidu, to challenge the king. After a long struggle, the two become friends. When Enkidu is killed, Gilgamesh tries to solve the riddle of everlasting life…

The cinematic dimension was further explored in a number of places, including in part of the exhibition’s ‘Portals and Worlds’ section. One of these was that of the world Thra portrayed in the film The Dark Crystal (1982) with Gelfing costumes designed by Brian Froud and concept artwork for the mystic urSkeks (sic) that were in turn brought to life by the puppeteer and the film’s co-director, Jim Henson.

The final section looked at fandom. It included short video interviews of fans in cosplay as to why they liked fantasy and what it means to them, as well as an example of a fantasy cosplay costume. This section recognised the creativity and innovation that fans have brought to the genre and included a look at fan fiction.

With over a hundred items on display it is only possible to barely skim the surface of this remarkable exhibition. Dare I say it, it’s even better than the Out Of This World Science Fiction exhibition the British Library put on with the help of the wonderful Science Fiction Foundation over a decade ago in 2011.

Much credit goes to the British Library’s Tanya Kirk (the exhibition’s lead curator) and her colleague Rachel Foss. They wisely sought out, and received guidance from a small advisory panel that included: Aliette de Bodard, Neil Gaiman, Roz Kaveney and Terri Windling. It was made possible with the support of The exhibition was made possible with support from Wayland Games and The Unwin Charitable Trust (Unwin originally published Tolkien’s The Hobbit), with thanks to The American Trust for the British Library and The B.H. Breslauer Fund of the American Trust for the British Library.

The exhibition, which runs to 25th February 2024 at the British Library, is accompanied by a series of events including author panels. (Check out the British Library website for details.)

For the rest of the world, the really good news is that later the exhibition will be going on tour after it closes at the British Library, the first confirmed tour venue is the Bowers Museum, USA, from October 2024 to February 2025 with more to be announced.

---

This article is based on a longer one that will, in due course, appear in SF² Concatenation.

• Words Jonathan Cowie
• Pictures Tony Bailey