Our grant to the Millennium Library Trust helped it to complete its project to donate one copy of each Everyman publication to every state secondary school.

The Everyman Library was established in 1906. Its aim has always been to publish in English the best books from across the world in well-printed and affordable form. Everyman seeks to provide the best introductions to literature for the student or general reader.

So far, the Millennium Library Trust has succeeded in donating 250 titles to each state secondary school (4,500 schools). LRCF’s grant is being used to donate a further ten titles to each school.

The titles have been chosen to provide every pupil with a selection of the greatest literature, history and non-fiction from the last 3 millennia. The books are not chosen with particular school syllabuses or age groups in mind, but simply because they are viewed as the best books. Some of the titles may be beyond the scope or interest of many pupils. However, the Trust believes that if one or two children from bookless homes, in each school, in each year, for the next fifty years or more, are enriched by the project, it will have been worthwhile. The evidence is that a significant number of children are reading and enjoying titles far removed from their syllabuses.