At the age of fifteen Robert Louis Stevenson penned “The Pentland Rising: A page of history”. This is a vivid and eloquent recreation of the events that led to the Covenanters’ military engagement with Royalist forces on 28 November 1666. This event, the Battle of Rullion Green, took place exactly 355 years ago today. Stevenson’s […]
Author: Anette Hagan
Curators’ Favourites: Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Amateur Emigrant
The choice: Robert Louis Stevenson – The Amateur Emigrant (Edinburgh, 1895) Chosen by: Anette Hagan, Rare Books Curator (Early Printed Collections to 1700) Read or download this book from our Digital Gallery. Welcome to the latest of our new fortnightly series where we introduce you to some favourites from our collections for you to enjoy reading, all freely available online. This […]
Delivering a bestseller: Culpeper and midwifery
Today we’re celebrating Midwifery Day with a look at its earliest bestseller. Just about 200 years ago, this book was published: Aristotle and midwifery – what’s that all about? And who was Culpeper? Let me take you right back to the 17th century where this story begins. At that time and well beyond, midwifery was […]
Gutenberg Viewing
To mark Book Week Scotland 2018 and the 550th anniversary of the death of Johannes Gutenberg, the National Library’s copy of the Gutenberg Bible was on show publicly yesterday for 8 hours. Ours is the only copy in public ownership in Scotland, and this was the first time we put both volumes on display together. […]
Happy Dictionary Day!
Hello, I’m Moray Teale and I am the Europeana Rise of Literacy Project Coordinator at the National Library. Today, October 16th, is National Dictionary Day in the United States! It celebrates the birth of Noah Webster, the most famous American lexicographer. Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828 but it was not […]
Scottish Book Trade Index Revamped!
The Scottish Book Trade Index is now fully searchable! The new version has all the information from the old one, but you can now combine searches rather than looking for one word such as a name or trade. You can, for instance, find out how many booksellers there were in Brechin in the 18th century […]
500 years of the Protestant Reformation
On 31 October 1517 the German monk Martin Luther posted 95 theses for academic disputation on the door of a church in Wittenberg. This event now symbolises the starting point of the Protestant Reformation, and this year sees its 500th anniversary. We have put on an exhibition of original Lutheran tracts which tell the story […]
Scottish chapbooks now online!
Over 3,000 Scottish chapbooks are now on the Library’s Digital Gallery! You find them under the heading “Chapbooks printed in Scotland”. These chapbooks were printed in the 18th and 19th centuries across the country.
Plague! has arrived at the Library
I’m delighted to announce that our new exhibition is open! It’s free and will run until 29 May 2016. Plague! showcases eight contagious diseases that ravaged Scotland over the last 700 years, and explores the cultural history of society’s responses to epidemic outbreaks. We’re focusing on infectious diseases because of their devastating consequences for society as […]