“Whatever may be the success of my stories, I shall be resolute in preserving my incognito, having observed that a nom de plume secures all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation.” George Eliot The author Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880) is better known as George Eliot. In 2020 when the ‘Reclaim Her Name’ project published […]
Category: Exhibitions and events
Eric Blair becomes George Orwell
When we were deciding who to include in the National Library of Scotland’s current exhibition ‘Pen names’ we had to be selective. Many authors have used pen names in the United Kingdom in the period covered by the exhibition, 1800 to the present day, but we could only include forty. We decided on criteria for […]
A potted history of pen names
A pen name is a literary alias: a variation of a writer’s birth or married name or a completely invented pseudonym. The Library’s exhibition ‘Pen Names’ takes a thematic approach to the subject, looking at how factors such as privacy, gender, reputation, authenticity, and genre have influenced writers’ decision to use a pen name from […]
Harry Potter and the 80 translations
The National Library of Scotland’s new Treasures exhibition in Edinburgh includes an array of translations of the first Harry Potter novel. These translations show that the Harry Potter books are a global success, published and read in almost every corner of the the world. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling (1997) (or […]
Funny Kinda Guy
At the Library’s moving image collections at Kelvin Hall, we have the real hidden gem that is ‘Funny Kinda Guy’ (2005), which we are screening for this year’s LGBT History Month: Blurring Borders – A World in Motion. This touching and musical feature-length documentary, directed by Travis Reeves, follows musician Simon de Voil through the […]
21st Century Periods
In early 2020, following the Government’s Period Poverty Bill and the subsequent Let’s Call Periods, Periods campaign, we committed to supplying free sanitary products in our buildings. By happy coincidence, General Collections curators Dora Petherbridge and Jan Usher had been working with Professor Bettina Bildhauer and Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik of St Andrews University, who […]
March’s Map of the Month: A map of Scotland. [Stitched by] Margaret Montgomery, circa 1800.
March is Women’s History Month and, in keeping with this theme, our Map of the Month is a map of Scotland, embroidered by a young girl over 200 years ago.