The Canning House Library

The Library

The Canning House Library was launched in 1948 and was recognised for many years as a key source of information on Latin America, attracting over three thousand users a year.

Currently standing at over 54,000 titles, it is one of the UK's largest and most prestigious collections of literature concerning Latin America and the UK-Latin America relationship. Discover select items below.

Originally stored within Canning House, in 2012 the collection was transferred to King’s College London, where it now resides within the Maughan Library. With the Foreign Office Collection, the Canning House material provides a significant source of complementary information for a wide range of users.

'One of the jewels of Latin American Studies in the United Kingdom'

- historian Hugh Thomas

Our collection at King's

Accessing the collection

All members of Canning House, both individual and corporate, are entitled to reference use of the King's College Library. This allows them to access and consult the entire Canning House collection alongside King's other holdings.

Full library membership, which includes borrowing from the collection, is available to Canning House members at a discounted rate of £30 for 6 months.

If you are interested in accessing the Canning House Library collection for any reason, please let us know by emailing [email protected].

You can use the King's Library Search function to view items of the Canning House collection. Use the advanced search function to filter the collection by "Former Owner contains Canning House".

Discover the collection online

Select items from the collection

Adventures Amidst Equatorial Forests and Rivers

Villiers Stuart

Henry Windsor Villiers 1827-1895 published this work in 1891. With contributions from Lloyd, W. W. (William Whitelocke), 1856-1897.

The full title is Adventures amidst the equatorial forests and rivers of South America : also in the West Indies and the wilds of Florida. To which is added "Jamaica revisited."

The book is an account of the author's travels in South America and Martinique.

The cover depicts a large tree fern with two men at the trunk and a woman in the foreground holding leaves. Cover is in blue cloth, stamped with pictorial design in gold.

Pampas woodpecker

Birds of La Plata (vol. 2)

This illustration of a Pampas woodpecker, Colaptes agricola Malh, comes from William Henry Hudson's (1841-1922) work entitled Birds of La Plata (vol. 2).

Published in 1920, the book acts as a guide to the birds of Argentina. This illustration shows a brightly coloured bird seated in the grass.

The republic of Mexico

Antonio García Cubas

This engraving from Antonio García Cubas' The republic of Mexico, 1876, depicts three categories of indigenous people.

The figures are described as "Zoque Indians | Totonaco Indian of the coast of Veracruz | Zapoteca Indians from Coatecas Altas, Oxaca"

A hand-book for travellers in Spain, and readers at home

Publisher: John Murray

This is the front page of a handbook for travellers in Spain for readers at home.

The guide was published in 1845 by John Murray of Albermarle Street.

George Canning

This frontispiece is a portrait of The Right Honourable George Canning, published in 1809.

Canning House takes its name from Canning, who was Foreign Secretary from 1807 – 1809 and again from 1822 – 1827, which were crucial times in the Wars of Independence which took place in Latin America.

Printed by C Knight.