The British Library

A set of 7 biscuits arranged in a square. In the top left is a biscuit version of the 1918 ‘inverted Jenny’ stamp. The royal icing has a scalloped edge, and the words ‘U.S. POSTAGE … 24 CENTS’ frame a navy-blue, upside-down image of a biplane. The top-right biscuit reads ‘The Lady’s Newspaper’ in ornate black lettering above a cameo of Queen Victoria. Below that is a biscuit depicting the title page of ‘The Tempest’ from Shakespeare’s First Folio. The bottom-right biscuit is inspired by a wax cylinder label: it reads ‘Genuine Edison Bell Gold Moulded Record’ in a vintage typeface. To the left is a large biscuit painted to look like a section of the Cotton Mappa Mundi, with patchy blue seas, red rivers, and turquoise mountain ranges. In the centre-left is a biscuit based on Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures Under Ground’. ‘Chapter 1’ is written in a Gothic font above a hand-drawn illustration of Alice and her sister. The central biscuit features the British Library at 50 logo in gold.

Biscuit (cookie) flavour: Earl Grey and Yorkshire Lavender

Decoration: Royal icing base. All designs painted onto royal icing by hand using food colouring gels, edible lustres, and vodka.

Context: Inspired by the British Library’s wonderful collections, and created to celebrate the Library’s 50th birthday.

Each biscuit depicts an item from one of the British Library’s six core collection areas: stamps, newspapers, manuscripts, printed materials, maps, and sounds.

Moving clockwise from the top left of the set, the collection items depicted include:

  • The 1918 24 cents ‘inverted Jenny’ stamp
  • The Lady’s Newspaper (1847-1863)
  • The title page for The Tempest in Shakespeare’s First Folio
  • Wax cylinder casing from the British Library’s Sounds collection
  • The 11th-century world map known as the Cotton Mappa Mundi
  • Lewis Carroll’s original illustrated manuscript for Alice’s Adventures Under Ground (which later became Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

You can find out more about these items here.