The novel “Autumn” by Ali Smith was published on 20th October 2016 and was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. It is the first volume in a quartet, each volume is named after a season. Quickly written and speedily published it is a “state of the nation” novel. Although published less than four months […]
Tag: translation
“Knots and Crosses” the first Rebus novel is 30 years old
It is thirty years since the first Rebus novel “Knots & crosses” was published and to mark the occasion REBUSFEST a weekend of literature, art, film and music celebrating the detective is being held in Edinburgh from 30th June to 2nd July. You can tour Rebus’s Edinburgh, sample whisky at the Caledonian Hotel or attend […]
The International Style of Muriel Spark: Sparkiving in Japan
February 1st 2017 would have been Dame Muriel Spark’s 99th birthday. What it will be is the beginning of a year-long countdown to her centenary, signalling a series of events and activities that will celebrate the life and writing of one of Scotland’s greatest 20th Century writers. And while we at the Library are busy […]
A Scottish female novelist in English translation
We have just purchased a the rare German-language translation of Elizabeth Helme’s novel St. Clair of the Isles; or, The outlaws of Barra (AB.1.215.69-70). The only other surviving copy of the German edition is recorded in the USA! This adventure story was first published in English in 1803, and the German version appeared in 1811. […]
A Scottish philosopher in Italian
We are always thrilled to find items we can add to our already quite comprehensive collection of works by the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume. This two-volume set, Saggie filosofici sull’umano intelletto de David Hume (RB.s.2913-2914) contains the first Italian translations of three of his works: of his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (first published in […]
Peru, Jesuits and a Scottish translator
John Hay (1547-1607) was a Scottish Jesuit who lived as an exile on the Continent. Hay entered the Society of Jesus in 1566 and became noted for his polemical treatises. In his later years he was based in the Low Countries where he translated Jesuit mission reports into Latin. We have been fortunate to acquire […]
Images of Ossian
We recently had an opportunity to buy a rare copy in original wrappers of a portfolio of six lithographs and a leaf of descriptive text by the German artist Carl Harnisch (1800-1882). The illustrations are inspired by the poems of Ossian, the legendary Celtic bard. The work is entitled ‘Bildliche Darstellungen in Arabeskenform zu Ossians […]
Celebrating Vesalius the anatomist – 500 years on
My name is Catherine Booth and I’m the International Collections Science Curator, doing a guest blog here because it partly relates to a book in the Rare Book Collections. 2014 is the 500th anniversary of the birth of Andreas Vesalius, recognised as the founder of modern anatomy. His reputation was earned because of his astonishing […]
The Battle of Lora: Ossian in Russian
We recently acquired a Russian version of “The Battle of Lora”, one of James MacPherson’s Ossianic poems. It was published exactly 200 years ago, in 1813, at the Navy Press in St Petersburg. MacPherson published his Fingal, and ancient poem in 1762 (Oss.4). The Battle of Lora is one of the epic poems in this collection. A […]
More Gaelic Books Digitised
We have reached the first milestone in digitising all our out-of-copyright books in Gaelic: the first 50 are now freely accessible and can be read in full on our website about Early Gaelic Book Collections! The digitised books were published between 1631 and 1900 and cover mostly literary and religious subjects from poetry and songs to translations […]