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 2026 Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin online
KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 121, August 2026 has just been posted on our site: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/b5mnpm. The pdf is up at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/mgqqw4.Contents
Agnes’s Candle by N. O. Bonzo (and Agnes Inglis) "And they will peruse these old records of voices and they will repeat your words and speak your names" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/xwdf99.
Clara Gilbert Cole: brief notes "Parliament is used to keep the rich rich, and the poor poor, and the Labour Party is impotent to alter this." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/95x893.
Prison Knitting by Clara Gilbert Cole "With the click of my needles I knit, knit, knit, / Not like Madame Defarge for heads to be cut" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/s4mzn2.
María Bruguera Pérez (1915-1992) by Joan Pinyana Mormeneo "She is and will remain identified as one of the many who fought from within the Libertarian Movement for the much-needed emancipation and comprehensive equality of all women." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/q83dwq.
Albert Meltzer, Our Comrade – Thirty Years On by the KSL Collective "he still influences how we think about anarchism and history, and what the Kate Sharpley Library does." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/z8wczj.
Ariane Gransac is dead: a life that was intense, rebellious and anarchist by Tomás Ibáñez "For upwards of ten years, she threw herself body and soul into the libertarian struggle against Francoism, alongside Octavio Alberola, taking part in nearly every action mounted by the FIJL, many of them under the aegis of the First of May Group." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/mpg6nj.
Anarchist solidarity with the Miners' Strike : call for interviews [2026] "Were you involved ... Would you be up for talking about it?" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/83bn2g.
Notes on the Cologne anarcho-syndicalists and the Miners’ Strike by Ralph Aurand "Cologne has only a million inhabitants. And we always made sure, we were not just moving around in our own bubble." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/s4mzmw.
Into The Valley… by A Bristol Miners Support Group "The culture-shock when we refused the meat sandwiches led onto a discussion about veganism and we managed to explain why we weren’t dying of malnutrition. This was quite amazing, as before the strike we would have been run outta town for being deviants…." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/3ffdd2.
Some Sources on the Spanish Revolution of 1936 [Digitised accounts by Augustin Souchy, Gaston Leval and (Glasgow's) Workers’ Free Press; Cipriano Mera, Suceso Portales and Mika Etchebéhère; and 'Versus the State : Theses on War, Revolution and Proletariat', a new book of essays by Agustín Guillamón] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/c868x9.
Library update (July 2026) [Suceso Portales (again), The Libertarian Maquis in Catalonia, free pamphlets for subscribers, Stuart Christie profiled by the BBC in 1981, and thoughts on libraries: "Luigi Balsamini […] has some interesting thoughts on why materials might not be preserved: ‘The troubled history of many activists […] fear of falling into a web of repression […] a general distrust must be recorded towards anything with a hint of “museumification”’"]. https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/gqnngx.
Anarchist solidarity with the Miners' Strike
We keep adding to our list of articles related to the Miners' Strike of 1984-85 https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/93207xWe'd encourage anyone involved in anarchist solidarity then to read Anarchist solidarity with the Miners' Strike : call for interviews [2026] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/83bn2g
Other recently posted pieces include:
[How the 1 in 12 Club Supported Striking Miners] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/69pb8n and Notes on the Cologne anarcho-syndicalists and the Miners’ Strike https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/s4mzmw
April 2026 Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin online
KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 120, April 2026 has just been posted on our site: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/c2fszv. The pdf is up at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/gqnnfrContents
A Very Interesting Letter [Marie Le Compte on flags, Louise Michel, translating Bakunin and Jo Labadie] "What can it be, though, but to hang out the black flag of starvation and – if they are very daring – the red flag of revolt, and have them both cut down by the police in five minutes" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/7sqx7x
Looking for Marie Le Compte "Le Compte made a mark as a speaker, journalist and translator and operated in various radical networks (socialist, anarchist, Irish nationalist, Russian Nihilist). [...] At one time she was a key figure in anarchist networks. Without an obituary the end of her story remains a mystery." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/qbznsw
New books on ‘punk spaces’ by Prank Sinatra with a cartoon by Richard Warren (Nick Soulsby on Centro Iberico, David Insurrection on anarcho-punk in London and Bradford’s 1 in 12 Club.) https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/jm664x
Tony Grogan by Matt Hannam "Tony was a huge influence on many of us who got to know him through our involvement with the 1 in 12 which he described as 'family aside, the most important thing in his life.'" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/0gb7bp
Matt Sollitt (1840-1915) by Nick Heath "Rocker says that ‘he had a gift of expressing himself clearly and briefly. His great fault was his quick temper. He always got furious when his opponent in an argument wandered away from his subject or didn’t follow his point logically. He was a first-class lecturer. If his audience showed any grasp of the subject he would develop it in a masterly way, like a trained university professor. But if his temper was roused he was a fighter. He was a stormy petrel.’" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/wwq1xn
Leeds Anarchist History "Shaun Cohen from the Ford Maguire Society has written an essay looking at the early history of anarchism in Leeds (to the 1920s)" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/cz8zbq
Cologne FAU hosted miners kids from Blyth by Ralph Aurand "It has been completely forgotten that the Cologne local federation of the anarcho-syndicalist FAU in October 84 invited 21 miners’ kids from Bates colliery (Blyth) led by Ronnie Campbell, then president of the local NUM and later MP and his wife Deidre, for a fortnight’s holiday in Cologne and the countryside near by." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/31zfhf
Library update [March 2026] "New treasures on the website" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/vx0nmf
Tony Grogan
We're sad to report the death of Tony Grogan, a founder member of Bradford's 1 in 12 club. We send our condolences to his family, friends and comrades. There's a tribute at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/0gb7bp.December 2025 Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin online
KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 119, December 2025 has just been posted on our site: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/hx3hjh. The pdf is up at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/ftth0nContents
The Bum on the Rods and the Bum on the Plush by W. E. Jones
"The bum on the rods is a social flea
That gets an occasional bite,
The bum on the plush is a social leech,
Blood-sucking by day and night"
With an illustration by Richard Warren and notes on how the poem passed into oral tradition. https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/0vt616
The Spanish revolution, its mistakes and potential corrections [1934] by Nestor Makhno "the Spanish people still has hopes of not succumbing to the bourgeoisie and reckons that it is quite capable of setting the course for the revolution by means of which it will be in a position to realize its centuries-old ambitions: to be free and independent of the bourgeoisie and any order it imposes." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/3n5w31
Dupuy, Rolf (1946-2025) by Nick Heath "I was shocked to hear news of the death of Rolf Dupuy two days after his death. Rolf was one of the founders of the French ORA, and later animator of the Dictionnaire International des Militants Anarchistes, a huge online resource in the French language, on biographies of libertarian militants around the world." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/2rbqq4
Death of Emilio Ceragioli, Glasgow 1945 by Frank Leech "He remained consistent and loyal to his Anarchist views to the end. We will miss his advice, encouragement, and his comradeship." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/x0k8tx
Half A Million Tramps "We’d like to put a scanned copy of Half a Million Tramps online for everyone to read freely. Are you a descendent of his? Can we have your permission to do so?" https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/cz8z9j
Tom Brown, Tyneside syndicalist : a little more biographical info. "The 1939 national register records him (as ‘Thomas Brown’) living at 10 Torquay Street [London], that his date of birth was 01 Feb 1902; and that he was employed as ‘Aircraft Fitter Heavy Worker’." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/5hqdrt
Thoughts on anarchist libraries "inevitably there are more mentions of anarchist libraries than accounts of exactly what they were doing and why. I assume there’s a shared understanding of how they work. Which is not to say that they didn’t come in all shapes and sizes." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/w0vwjt
Jack Kielty by Dave Pude "I know that our movement has lost a truly proletarian character, breathing the old fighting atmosphere of the I.W.W. with a live, modernistic interpretation." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/fqz827
Library update [Dec 2025] Treasures / Biographies / Calendars https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/c2fsxp
A Note on the ‘Prehistory’ of the Kate Sharpley Library "We could call 1979-1982 our ‘prehistory’ when what would later be called the Kate Sharpley Library was coming together." https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/v15h6j