Gladstone’s Library at St. Deiniol’s, Hawarden, Wales

This isn’t just a hotel library—it’s truly a hotel inside a library. British prime minister William Gladstone founded the “residential library” in 1889 as a sleepover haven for scholars and bookworms. Not only did he endow it with 32,000 books from his own collection, he personally hauled thousands of them over with a wheelbarrow. Though he never lived to see it completed, the library today is as Gladstone would have wanted, with a graceful Victorian gallery, desks tucked among the stacks, and 26 snug onsite bedrooms. In 2012 the library launched a writer-in-residence program, in which a writer stays for a month and runs a creative writing workshop. gladstoneslibrary.org