Rare Books @ NLS

We recently acquired a copy of Thomas a Kempis’s famous devotional work De imitatione Christi (Bdg.s.950), which was printed in Mechelen, Germany, in 1885. The book is of particular interest because of its modelled goatskin binding:

The binding is in the style of the Scottish bookbinder Annie MacDonald (d. 1924), who invented the very technique for modelling leather for bookbindings. The design is traced onto the dampened leather and a small tool called a Dresden is used to carefully press the background and mould the relief design. Undressed goatskin mellows with age from white to the rich amber colour you can see in the image.

Annie MacDonald, who got her inspiration from medieval books, began teaching herself and others in the early 1890s. That group became known as the Edinburgh Arts and Crafts Club.

This binding was almost certainly done by an accomplished pupil of Annie MacDonald’s. A possible clue to her identity is given by an inscription on one of the front endpapers: Kathleen from M.D.M. ‘M.D.M.’ may be Mrs. Douglas Maclagan, one of the Edinburgh women binders.

Find out more about Scottish decorative bookbinding on our website. You can also view a selection of Scottish bindings.

George Augustus Eliott (1717-1790) may not be a very familiar name to many of us, but in the 18th century he was quite a celebrity. Born in Stobs, Roxburghshire, Elliot is best remembered for his leadership of the British garrison of Gibraltar. He arrived there as governor in 1779 and under his leadership the garrison managed to hold firm against the attack by French and Spanish forces until the lifting of the siege in 1783. The celebrated Scottish army officer, Lieutenant General and Governor of Gibraltar George Elliot later became first Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar (1717-1790). 

We recently bought a second edition of a German biography of Elliot. Entitled Elliots Leben (Elliot’slife) (AB.1.212.43), it was written by Johann Nicolaus Carl Buchenroeder. Elliot was still alive when it first appeared. The publication of a German biography of Elliot is a testimony to the role the Hanoverian soldiers played in the epic defence of Britain’s strategic outpost at Gibraltar. The book also has an added historical and geographical description of Gibraltar.

Find out more about George Elliot in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections).

We have recently bought an incunable. Incunabulum is Latin for “things in the cradle”, and the term means an item that was printed before 1501, i.e. during the infancy of printing with movable type.

A book’s title page as we know it, with title, subtitle, author’s name, publisher’s name, and date and place of publication, was only fully developed by 1500. Before that, the author’s name and the title of the book usually appeared in the heading of the first page and then the printer launched straight into the text. This is also the case with our new acquisition:

We don’t often buy incunables because there are no Scottish ones: printing in Scotland did not start until 1508. The reason why we purchased this one has to do with its topic. The book is by the Roman historian Tacitus (AD 56-117) and it contains the first printing of his biography of Agricola. Agricola was Tacitus’ father-in-law, and, more importantly, the Roman general and governor of Britain who extended Roman occupation northwards into Scotland. So, in this incunable we find the first substantial historical account of events in what is now Scotland! It also gives the first published account of a battle on Scottish soil: the Battle of Mons Graupius.  There is even a mention of the “objectionable climate with its frequent rains and mists”!

This incunable was printed in Milan in 1487. The text was edited by the famous Italian Renaissance scholar Francesco Dal Pozzo (Franciscus Puteolanus) (d. 1490), a professor of rhetoric and poetry at the University of Bologna.

We recently acquired two very rare translations into Russian of Walter Scott’s epic poems The Lay of the Last Minstrel and Rokeby. Scott was probably the most popular foreign author in Russia in the 19th century. 

The Lay of the Last Minstrel was first published in 1805. The Russian translation (RB.s.2828), in prose rather than verse, appeared in 1823. The translator was Mikhail Kachenovsky (1775-1842), a professor at Moscow University and editor of the journal Vestnik Evropy (Herald of Europe). We only know of two other copies of this translation. One is held in Helsinki by the National Library of Finland, and one in St Petersburg at the National Library of Russia.

The first English edition of Rokeby appeared in 1813 and was soon translated for readers on the Continent.  The Russian translation (RB.s.2826-2827), by an unidentified translator, appeared in 1823. The Russian version of the poem is in prose, just like that of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. The National Library of Russia in St Petersburg holds a copy, but we have traced no other copies in western European libraries.

Find out more about Sir Walter Scott  in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

The Walter Scott Digital Archive maintained by Edinburgh University Library is a treasure trove of information. Have a a look at the pages about The Lay of the Last Minstrel and Rokeby.

A small book with coloured plates published in 1858 was recently added to the Library’s collections. It was published by the firm of Thomas Nelson, which became one of the most successful publishing houses in the world during the 19th century. Its origins lay in bookselling in Edinburgh, and from there the firm expanded into publishing and printing.

This book has particularly attractive colour plates. They were produced using an early chromolithograph technique based on G. J. Cox’s invention of transferring steel and copperplate engraving onto lithographic stone, but using a combination of light blue, chocolate brown, and beige. Here is an example:

“Overland route to India and China” is an example of Nelson’s success in printing good quality, affordable, small format books. Despite its title, this anonymous work describes a sea journey to China, stopping in Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt and India, Ceylon, Hong Kong and Singapore, before ending up in Shanghai. The only real overlandpart of the journey was travelling from Alexandria to Suez (the Suez canal was yet to be built)! This journey involved “incessant galloping and jolting over the parched desert” as the railway line through the desert was still in construction. Travelling was certainly an adventure in those days!

We recently acquired an adaption of Sir Walter Scott’s novel “Kenilworth“, an adventure story set during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) with a bit of a tragic ending. What makes this acquisition so interesting is not that it is aimed at younger readers, but that it’s a Russian adaptation! It was printed in Moscow and St Petersburg in 1873, that is 52 years after the original edition.

Translations of Scott into Russian began to appear in the 1820s. Scott reached probably the widest audience of any foreign author in Russia in the 19th century. Not only that, he also had a considerable influence on the development of the Russian historical novel. It even became fashionable in 19th-century Russia to wear tartan and so-called ‘Walter Scott’ cloaks, and to dress up as characters from his novels.

You’ll find lots of information about Walter Scott’s life and works in the Walter Scott Digital Archive maintained by Edinburgh University Library. Have a look in particuar at the page about the novel “Kenilworth“.

More Information about Sir Walter Scott is available from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

The Library has the largest collection of bindings by the brothers James and William Scott, renowned Scottish bookbinders who were active in the second half of the 18th century. We are always looking to add to our collections of bindings, and here’s one we bought recently.

This particular volume is bound in a red morocco binding which is representative of James Scott’s earlier work. Here is a bit of technical information: It combines the characteristics of the rococo style with elements of chinoiserie, a style that preceded his shift into a more neo-classical decorative influence. Both boards are bordered by a Greek-key roll, panels with an elaborate rococo decoration framing a radiating pyramid, with use of swan and nesting bird tools; the spine is gilt in compartments, repeating a tool with two birds. The binding appears datable to c.1777. 

Three books are bound together in this one volume: a Book of Common Prayer, a Companion to the altar, and the New version of the Psalms of David. They were all printed by Adrian Watkins in Edinburgh between 1761 and 1762, but they obviously had to wait some 15 years before they were bound together by James Scott.

Here’s a book we bought not so much because of what’s in it, but because of who owned it. It’s an English translation of a theological treatise by a French noblewoman, Louise Francoise de la Baume le Blanc, Duchesse de la Valliere (1644-1710), called The penitent lady (NLS shelfmark  AB.1.211.014).  The book itself does not look terribly exciting –

but its author is certainly an interesting figure! Louise Francoise de la Baume le Blanc made her debut at court in 1661 and soon attracted the attention of  King Louis XIV. She became his mistress and bore him four children. However, by 1670 she had lost her place as Louis’ principal mistress, and, after recovering from a serious illness and suffering a crisis of conscience, she decided to renounce her former sinful existence. One of the results of her change of heart was her turning towards writing. In 1671 she published her Reflexions sur la misericorde de Dieu (Reflections on the mercy of God), of which we have now bought a rare English translation.  In 1674 she entered a Carmelite convent in Paris, where she remained for the rest of her life.

This particular copy has an inscription by a former owner, Maurice Paterson (1836-1917), who was the rector of Moray House in Edinburgh, then a Free Church teacher training college. It reads:

“This book belonged to and was much prized by Mrs. Scott, mother of Sir Walter Scott.

Presented by Isabella Paterson step cousin who resided with Aunt Esther who was companion of Mrs. Scott.

Esther Paterson was my father’s half sister.

M. P.”

So, this book once belonged to Anne Scott, Sir Walter Scott’s mother, and had passed into Maurice Paterson’s hands via a step-cousin!

Esther Paterson had nursed Walter Scott’s older brother John through his final illness and then became his mother’s companion for the final years of her life. Anne Scott died in 1819, and Esther Paterson presumably received this book as a token of gratitude for her work.

Walter Scott was certainly grateful to Esther, describing her as a person of ‘uncommon good sense and civility’, who was of ‘inestimable comfort’ to his dear mother.

Further reading:

Sir Walter Scott in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

H.J.C. Grierson (ed.). The letters of Sir Walter Scott, London, 1932-37. (NLS shelfmark Lit.S.25) Volumes 6 and 7 are particularly interesting here.

We’ve been fortunate recently to buy a copy of a book which appears to be the only known copy! It’s called Whiskiana, or the drunkard’s progress.  A poem. In Scottish verse (NLS shelfmark AP.1.211.06), and it was printed in Glasgow in 1812:

Whiskiana deals with the “evil of habitual intoxication”.  The author acknowledges the popular Scots poet Hector Macneill as an inspiration but remains anonymous, simply calling himself Anti-Whiskianus.

All we know about him is what he reveals about himself in the preface: he was originally from the village of Ceres in Fife. 

 The poem follows a drunkard all the way from inebriation to redemption in order to “counteract the excessive praises lavished on whisky by Burns”. I’m not sure how much Robert Burns can be blamed for excessive whisky consumption, but for Anti-Whiskianus temperance was the only solution to the problem. No half measures then!

We recently bought a collection of Scottish poems (shelfmark: RB.s.2811(1-13)) written in the late 18th century. What makes this small book so interesting is that most of the poems were either written or edited by a physician:  Andrew Duncan the elder (1744-1828).

Duncan was a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, a period which came to an end at the close of the 18th century. But he is still well known today, as the founder of two Edinburgh institutions: a dispensary for the sick poor, and a lunatic asylum where patients were treated humanely.  

Not only did Andrew Duncan write poetry, but he composed much of it in Scots! Here is the title page of the collection:

I am fascinated by the Scottish Enlightenment figures. Like David Hume, who you can read about in the previous blog, Andrew Duncan had multiple talents, and this is true for most other eminent representatives of that period. Adam Ferguson was an army chaplain and sociologist, the economist Adam Smith wrote his first book on moral sentiments, the painter Allan Ramsay of Kinkell published a book on government, the poet James MacPherson wrote a history of Great Britain, and Thomas Telford published poetry before he became famous as a civil engineer. And there are more examples like this!

Like the other Enlightenment figures, Andrew Duncan was a convivial man with great energy, and founded many clubs and societies, such as the Aesculapian Club, the Harvein, Gymnastic and Royal Caledonian Horticultural societies. His poetry, admittedly of indifferent quality, was often read out or sung at meetings of these clubs. The atmosphere in the taverns where they met must have been amazing!

You can get a great insight into the figures and achievements of the Scottish Enlightenment from our Learning Zone feature “Northern Lights“. It is particularly designed as a resource for secondary schools, but there is something in it for everybody: town planning, Ossian, Scotticisms, clubs and societies like those founded by Andrew Duncan, and the Statistical Account of Scotland.

Further reading:

Andrew Duncan the elder in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

David Hume in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Adam Ferguson in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Adam Smith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Allan Ramsay in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

James MacPherson in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Thomas Telford in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)