Desperate Dan made his first appearance in issue 1 of the “The Dandy Comic” in December 1937 as reproduced above. “The Dandy Comic” was arguably Scotland’s greatest contribution to 20th century popular culture at least until a single mother completed her book about a boy wizard in an Edinburgh café in 1995. “The Dandy Comic” […]
Author: Ian Scott
Willa and Edwin Muir bring Franz Kafka to the English speaking world
Pictured above are the first editions of the translations of the works of Franz Kafka by Willa and Edwin Muir in order of publication, left to right. Between 1930 and 1949 Willa and Edwin Muir would bring the fiction of Franz Kafka to English readers for the first time and their translations would become the […]
A. L. Lloyd, folklorist and early translator of Kafka
3rd June 2024 is the centenary of Franz Kafka’s death so I have been looking at early English language translations of his work in our collections including a 1937 edition of the classic novella “The Metamorphosis”. It is a very attractive little book and almost certainly the first time this story was published as a […]
Explore our world class ice skating collections on the 40th anniversary of Torvill and Dean winning Olympic gold
On Valentine’s Day 1984 a British television audience of more than 24 million watched Torvill and Dean skate to Maurice Ravel’s Boléro at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. The performance brought them a gold medal and a seemingly permanent place in the hearts of the British nation. Thanks to the success of John Curry, […]
Rare book by J.R.R. Tolkien held by National Library of Scotland
A recently retired member of staff got in touch with the Library to ask if we were aware that we had a very rare book by J.R.R, Tolkien in the collections. The rare item is a booklet called “Songs for the Philologists” by J.R.R. Tolkien and E.V. Gordon which was privately printed by the Department […]
Factual books for children in the collections
Legal deposit legislation means that most UK and Irish publications are in our collections. As a consequence we have items you might not expect to find in a reference library such as car and other repair manuals and Mills and Boon romances. If you need information on how to build a shed, knit a jumper, […]
You can now explore “The Listener” magazine for free
You might have thought about getting a reader’s ticket for the National Library of Scotland but decided against it as it is not convenient for you to visit our Edinburgh reading rooms. Did you know that free membership of the Library lets you consult our physical collections but also gives you remote access to digital […]
Some new football books for the collections thanks to Cammy Murray of St Mirren, Motherwell, and Arbroath Football Clubs
The Library is home to almost certainly the largest collection of books on Scottish football in the world. We have biographies, annuals, club histories and match programmes dating from the mid 19th century to the present day covering all levels of the game from amateur to the national team. We are always keen to add […]
Two lurid 1940’s paperbacks published in Glasgow
The publisher most associated with paperbacks in the UK is Penguin Books who, changed British reading habits forever when they published their first ten titles in 1935. The ten included literary fiction by Ernest Hemingway and Eric Linklater, crime stories by Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers and the first Penguin book “Ariel” by André […]
Tom Hanlin: Scottish miner and bestselling novelist whose work was praised by John Steinbeck
Scottish literature has a strong tradition of novels of working-class life by working-class authors. Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s ‘A Scots Quair’ (1932-4), William McIlvanney’s ‘Docherty’ (1975), James Kelman’s ‘The Bus Conductor Hines’ (1984) and Irvine Welsh’s ‘Trainspotting’ (1993) are among the classic works of Scottish proletarian literature. The only two Scottish novels that have won the […]