Thomas Sturdy Law (1916-1997), a committed and powerful poet in the Scots language, was born in Lanarkshire one hundred years ago on Hallowe’en. Our current display in the main hall of our George IV Bridge building in Edinburgh notes the centenary of his birth, drawing on our extensive manuscript and published collections.
Author: Andrew Martin
Playing Shakespeare – curtain coming down very soon
Our Treasures exhibition – Playing Shakespeare: 400 years of great acting– part of this year’s world-wide commemoration of Shakespeare’s death in 1616, is coming to the end of its run, with only a few days left. Monday 13 June is your last chance to see four centuries of Shakespeare on stage.
Nan Shepherd on the new five pound note
Good news this week for Scottish literature. Nan Shepherd, one of our best and most interesting 20th century writers will feature on a new £5 note from the Royal Bank of Scotland. Who exactly was the commanding figure on the new note? Nan Shepherd (1893-1981) lived in Aberdeenshire all her life, and published only […]
Playing Shakespeare: 400 years of great acting – our new Treasures display
Ellen Terry and Henry Irving It is great to see the curtain go up on our new Treasures display – Playing Shakespeare: 400 years of great acting – our contribution to this year’s world-wide commemoration of Shakespeare’s death in 1616. I’ve been working on the display for the last few months, and as always it is […]
Out in Scotland! LGBT display
(Sandstone Press) February is LGBT History Month and we are celebrating the LGBT Scottish writing perspective with a small display just outside the Reading Rooms in our George IV Bridge building in Edinburgh. LGBT writing is especially vibrant in Scotland at the moment with many top sellers and prize winners. Recent National Library guest Val […]
Callum Macdonald Memorial Award 2016
In the week that Scottish poet Don Paterson won the Costa Book Award for poetry for his collection 40 sonnets, we are pleased to announce this year’s Callum Macdonald Memorial Award. In fact the entries have started to come in already. The Callum Macdonald Memorial Award celebrates Scottish pamphlet poetry and rewards the publisher rather […]
Sunset Song on screen
Film adaptations of Scottish literature have been very much in my mind recently. In November we celebrated Stevenson on screen for RLS Day, and last week I was in Inverness talking about the Hitchcock film version of John Buchan’s The thirty-nine steps – now many of us are catching up with the long-awaited film of Sunset song
Stevenson on screen
This week we are celebrating Robert Louis Stevenson’s contribution to cinema with a display highlighting film versions of his most famous novels. Although he died in 1894, a couple of years before the birth of cinema, RLS made an impact on films all the same. He is one of the most adapted writers for the […]
Happy Birthday RLS
November 13 was R.L.S Day, celebrating the life and work of our great writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson has been in my mind recently as I re-read Kidnapped – still exciting – and did research on the various film versions of his books for our cinema exhibition.
Going to the Pictures – Dr.Cronin’s Casebook
BBC Alba is currently showing the fondly remembered 1960s television version of Dr Finlay’s Casebook based on the short stories of Scotland’s best-selling author of yesteryear – A.J. Cronin, 1896-1981.