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 […]
Tag: Scottish Printers
Talwin Morris: Book Design and the Glasgow School at the Turn of the 20th century
My name is Kathryn Hillman. I’ve just completed a postgraduate internship within Rare Books Collections as part of my MSc in Art in the Global Middle Ages at the University of Edinburgh. I spent most of my time here at the National Library working on the Provenance Project, researching and identifying the previous ownership history of rare books […]
Oliver & Boyd
Recent visitors to the National Library of Scotland may have noticed two stern visages gazing down on them as they ascend the front stair.
Miniature works of Shakespeare
As 2016 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare it was fortuitous that this summer the National Library was able to purchase a wonderful miniature edition of the Bard’s works. It is a 40 volume Complete Works of William Shakespeare printed in Scotland by Andersons Edinburgh Ltd. and published by Allied Newspapers […]
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.
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 […]
Chapbooks
A volume with 16 rare Scottish chapbooks (AB.1.215.52) has been added to our collections. 15 of them were printed in Kilmarnock and one in Ayr. Among the chapbooks are four unrecorded printings (nos 3, 6, 7 and 12 in the volume). All items in this volume contain versions of popular ballads and songs of the […]
An unrecorded Glasgow printing
We have been fortunate to purchase an unrecorded Glasgow printing from 1688 (AP.1.215.14). The work consists of only 24 pages stitched together without a protective cover. The printers of this Glasgow edition, James and Matthew Robertson, were two of the principal chapbook printers in Scotland from 1782 onwards. They also published children’s books. The first […]
James IV and the Coming of Print to Scotland
Today from 12-2pm at NLS we are marking the 500th anniversary of the death of James IV by displaying the Chepman and Myllar prints– Scotland’s first printed books. What, you may ask, had this particular Scottish king to do with the history of the book in Scotland? A Renaissance King James IV, print from a […]
Come and See Scotland’s First Printed Books
Come to NLS on Monday 9 September, 2013, 12-2pm, for a rare opportunity to see Scotland’s first printed books! September 9 is the 500th anniversary of the battle of Flodden, which saw the death of King James IV. We will mark the 500th anniversary of the battle and celebrate the contribution of James IV to […]