British Library launches 19th Century iPad app

The British Library has launched an iPad app allowing subscribers to browse 45,000 books from its 19th century historical collection.

Subscription costs £1.99 per month and users can explore books from the likes of classic novels to science, travel writing and memoir from the era. Among the titles that can be read are an account of the exhumation of Napoleon's body, the memoir of a battlefield nurse during the American Civil War and an 1884 study of the gypsies of the Scottish Borders.

The app was built by Bibliolabs and the British Library said it aims to have 60,000 titles available by the end of the year.

Mitchell Davis, a founder of BiblioLabs, said: “This app makes 45,000 books from the Library’s unrivalled collections available to users around the world, at a price that over 12 months is equivalent to just one hardback book. Those who prefer to dip in can do so for a month and have at their disposal, for barely the price of a magazine, a bibliophile’s dream.”