The British Library announced on Thursday that it will hold exhibitions of 20th century state propaganda, newly-acquired archives of Sir Alex Guinness, and publish the last work of Virginia Woolf this year.

The exhibition Propaganda: Power and Persuasion will run from May 17 to Sept. 17 this year, in a bid to explore how different states have used propaganda during the 20th and the 21st centuries, in peace and in war.

Among the exhibits are a selection of propaganda leaflets dropped on occupied territories by the Allied powers during WWII. Acquired from the Foreign Office during the war, these leaflets will be displayed in public for the first time.

They were dropped on France, Germany and Italy, containing inventive message encouraging civilian resistance and urging armed forces to surrender.

In a separate event, the personal archive of Oscar-winning actor Alec Guinness who charted his career from the late 1930s to his death in 2000 will be publicly available for the first time.

The archive includes more than 900 of Guinness's letters to family and friends, and over 100 volumes of diaries, offering an intimate account of his life.

Besides, the British Library will reveal the last unpublished work by writer Virginia Woolf in its new publication on June 13.

In the summer of 1923, Woolf's nephews, Quentin and Julian Bell, founded a family newspaper, the Charleston Bulletin. Woolf contributed for a series of supplements to the daily newspaper between 1923 and 1927.

Written or dictated by Woolf and illustrated by Quentin, these booklets showed the humorous and mischievous nature of the writer.