Welcome to the Kate Sharpley Library
The Kate Sharpley Library exists to preserve and promote anarchist history. (More information.)
Everything at the Kate Sharpley Library - acquisitions, cataloguing, preservation work, publishing, answering enquiries is done by volunteers: we get no money from governments or the business community. All our running costs are met by donations from members of the collective, subscribers and supporters, or by the small income we make through publishing. Please consider donating and subscribing.
We also try to promote the history of anarchism by publishing studies based on those materials - or reprints of original documents taken from our collection. Check out our books and pamphlets available for sale or explore our online documents or browse back issues of our Bulletin.
Our physical library (in California) includes books, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts and ephemera documenting the history of anarchist movements. Contact us to arrange a visit.
Recent news
August 2025 Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin online
KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 118, August 2025 has just been posted on our site: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/t1g3tw. The pdf is up at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/gf1xjzContents
What Anarchists Want [Leaflet] "Instead of loving violence, as we are accused, we hate it and are determined to abolish it, but we will not admit that any concession should be made to injustice." [We believe this dates to 1892/93] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/p2njn8
Death of Octavio Alberola (1928-2025) by Agustín Comotto. "Octavio Alberola was a different sort, with a unique turn of mind and a commendable optimism about the human race." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/ksn258
Decades in the Struggle: Interviewing older anarchists. "a project interviewing anarchist and anarchist-adjacent thinkers, writers, and activists (aged 60 and older, who are fluent in spoken English) in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and beyond." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/hx3hg5
Malcolm Archibald: 50 years of Black Cat Press (interviewed by Sean Patterson) "When I became active in the anarchist movement in Canada in the 1970s, the anarchists were all poverty-stricken, trying to survive in minimum-wage jobs. The next generation was much better off and had a lot of money to throw around. Now, the current generation is back to being dirt poor again, lacking the resources to make an impact. But I think the prospects for the future are good". https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/1jwvk6
Anarchist César Orquín, Hero of Mauthausen by Guillem Llin Llopis. "On 13 December 1940 he arrived in Mauthausen as deportee No 805. As he spoke German, they made him an interpreter. It was then that he came up with a plan to save as many [Spanish] republican lives as he could." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/4b8jmz
Carl Nold by Otto Herman. "He came frequently to Chicago, and the first question he asked was always: ‘Do you have enough wine in your cellar?’ […] Comrade Carl Nold did not claim to be a hero, but he was a sincere fighter against capitalism and the State with its cruel political machinery." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/3bk57f
Man in the biscuit tin… "From 1933 to 1940 Marcus Graham edited Man! A Journal of the Anarchist Ideal and Movement for the International Group of San Francisco…" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/2bvs0h
Shadows In The Struggle For Equality [Book review]. "Hart builds on Yelensky’s work with a 70 page foreword discussing prison solidarity from the Anarchist Red Cross to today and a set of appendices filling out parts of the story to 1958". https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/547g18
Library update (Aug. 2025) [amongst other things] "Anyone read good historic accounts of what other anarchist libraries aimed to do?" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/hdr9v5
Graham Moss. "He learnt printing at Freedom Press in the 1960s and was a member of the Industrial Workers of the World." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/vq85qf
London Anarchist Bookfair 2025
The London Anarchist Bookfair 2025 is on Saturday 20 September in the Waterloo Graffiti Tunnel. See https://anarchistbookfair.london/ and https://www.leakestreetarches.london/Decades in the Struggle: Interviewing older anarchists
‘Decades in the Struggle’ is a project interviewing anarchist and anarchist-adjacent thinkers, writers, and activists (aged 60 and older, who are fluent in spoken English) in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and beyond. More details at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/hx3hg5.Marking the life of Octavio Alberola
The KSL would like to mark the life of Octavio Alberola. News of his death came from Agustín Comotto: Death of Octavio Alberola (1928-2025) https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/ksn258. We have posted an interview with him by Agustín Guillamón from November 2016 https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/c5b1t1. There's a review of his autobiography at Defeat and Revival : Thoughts on The Weight of the Stars [Book Review] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/tqjs5z.April 2025 Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin online
KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 117, April 2025 has just been posted on our site: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/69pb54. The pdf is up at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/80gd1jContents:
The ‘Finest library on Anarchy’ : Georges Pilotelle, Columbia University and anarchist print culture "there are things listed that seem worth looking at like the ‘Volume of Italian and Spanish anarchist periodical issues’, ‘a collection of socialistic and anarchistic ballads and songs in French and German’ and ‘Anarchistic pamphlets and posters in French, English, German, Italian, Dutch and Spanish, 1883-1896’." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/wwq1v9
John Couzin – Seeker of Peace, Poet and Propagandist (1934-2025) by Stasia Rice "His big hearted love for everyone has left a deep impression upon us all and the memory of John Couzin’s own spirit of revolt will forever remain a source of inspiration in our lives." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/v15h46
Obituary: Umberto Tommasini (1896-1980) "At the age of 74, in 1970, he repulsed a fascist attack on the group’s premises, chasing several of the attackers into the streets and seeing off several others." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/vx0nhx
Layabouts? by Albert Meltzer "The country is a “paradise for layabouts, crooks, gangsters and gamblers”. True, but we call them the Ruling Class.’" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/76hgm7
Piecing Together Anarchist History by Barry Pateman "Firstly, I think we should understand that fliers don’t just appear. They are often the result of careful thinking and planning and, of course, effort." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/q575vs
Library update (April 2025) [amongst other things] "Cover price has increased for the first time since 1991, for the obvious reason. Still happy to get donations from people who like what we do." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/66t392
The Police Computer Speaks by Richard Warren "this computer, being entirely logical, is infallible in its reasoning…" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/jh9z2q
Antoinette Cazal "Constance Bantman has just published a short piece on French anarchist Antoinette Cazal (1862-1902) who was acquitted in the ‘Trial of the Thirty’ (1894) and had ‘complicated romantic entanglements with Léon Ortiz’, who was convicted." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/s1rqjs