Pride and Prejudice tells the timeless story of love and the English class system and has since inspired television shows and Hollywood adaptations. Austen sold the copyright for Pride and Prejudice to Thomas Egerton for £110, having asked for £150. It has been estimated that Egerton made £450 from the first two editions of the book.
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The library was set up in the Hall of Science in Campsfield, Manchester, in 1852. It was the first lending library in Britain to be established under the Public Libraries Act in 1850, after the mayor of Manchester instigated a campaign to raise money to buy a building and stock it full of books. The library became the Manchester Central Library in 1934, shown here.
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This groundbreaking novel, with its four-letter words and explicit descriptions of sex, was first printed privately in Florence in 1928, where it immediately sold out. The full text was not published openly in Britain until August 1960. In an infamous trial later that year, the publishers, Penguin, were found not guilty under the Obscene Publications Act.
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Thanks to Allen Lane, a paperback revolution started in the UK. Removing the perception of books as pricey, heavy and unattainable, Lane set up Penguin Books, selling popular and literary works by writers such as Ernest Hemingway and Agatha Christie.
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This coming-of-age tale about boys from a UK boarding school left on an island without parental control, launched William Golding from a schoolteacher to a literary marvel. Its endless appeal has sparked film and TV spin-off shows, including a notable Simpsons episode.
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The second children's book published by British author Roald Dahl, whose famous works include Matilda, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Dahl used gruesome tales in his stories and this book was so “dark” that while it was published in the US in 1961, the UK print run didn’t hit shelves until 1967. It went on to become a bestseller.
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Last year, this celebrated piece of writing turned 50. The tale, which follows the life of protagonist Alex as he carries out acts of violence, inspired the infamous film, directed by Stanley Kubrick in 1971.
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In July 1995, Amazon.com was born thanks to founder Jeff Bezos. Back then, it was hard to imagine people would buy books at the click of a button but the year-on-year success of the site (it made $13.18bn in 2012), shows a major shift in the way we purchase books.
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In 2004, Google Books started a library project to digitise millions of books from US university libraries and make them searchable online, without compensation to the writers. Since then, several major publishers and authors have been to court to complain about copyright infringement. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America
Sony launched an ebook reader, the Data Discman, in 1992, but only in recent years has the digital book taken off. Amazon brought out its Kindle in 2007 in the US and opened its UK Kindle store in 2010. In August 2012, Amazon UK reported that it was selling more ebooks than printed books. Writers have used the digital medium to circumvent established publishing houses and take a more DIY approach to the distribution and marketing of their books. Photograph: EyesWideOpen/Getty Images
Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and to celebrate his 200th birthday ALCS embarked on a popular nationwide UK schools campaign to shed light on the novelist's support for copyright laws. The campaign helped to educate the next generation of young minds on the importance of copyright laws to protect authors and their writings.
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Bestselling author Philip Pullman joined forces with fellow writers and the ALCS to successfully campaign against last year’s proposed government plans to amend educational copyright. The changes could have affected the copyright licensing income authors receive from work photocopied and re-used in schools. Photograph: Clara Molden/Camera Press
