The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Volume 1, Part II
From the Earliest Times to 1707 - Networks, Collections and Genre
Published on 30. April 2026
Book
Hardback
704 pages
978-1-3995-5771-9 (ISBN)
Description
Over two parts, 69 leading scholars, librarians and archivists come together to analyse the development of the book in Scotland from the early seventh century BCE to the 1707 Union, from depictions of books in carved stone monuments to the printing presses of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow producing pamphlets and receipts used for everyday business at the end of the seventeenth century.
Part II: Networks, Collections and Genre focuses on the types of books and printed material that were being made, produced, collected and used in Scotland in the medieval and early modern periods. On a scale not before attempted, Part II includes a survey of the genres of books and written material produced and consumed in Scotland over a millennium of the country's history. Profiles of individual collectors help to illustrate the wider narratives of individuals, institutions and networks of the owners, collectors and patrons who helped shaped the bookish landscape of Scotland before the Union.
Part II: Networks, Collections and Genre focuses on the types of books and printed material that were being made, produced, collected and used in Scotland in the medieval and early modern periods. On a scale not before attempted, Part II includes a survey of the genres of books and written material produced and consumed in Scotland over a millennium of the country's history. Profiles of individual collectors help to illustrate the wider narratives of individuals, institutions and networks of the owners, collectors and patrons who helped shaped the bookish landscape of Scotland before the Union.
Reviews / Votes
This collection wonderfully captures Scotland's vibrant reading cultures, from the people who patronised book production, to the founding of libraries, to the genres encountered by readers. A must for every historian's bookshelf. -- Laura Stewart, University of York As well as complementing Part I of this excellent volume, this exhaustive study of patrons, libraries and of genres of writing is a remarkable collection in its own right. A landmark study in our understanding of Scotland's textual heritage. -- Michael Brown, University of St AndrewsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
23 black & white illustrations, 8 colour illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 38 mm
Weight
1311 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3995-5771-9 (9781399557719)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Daryl Green is Associate Director for Heritage Collections and Co-Director of the Centre for Research Collections at the University of Edinburgh. Daryl has worked professionally with manuscripts and early printed books at York Minster Library, the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), the University of St Andrews and Oxford. He has published on early Scottish book ownership, the history of science communication and on professional topics such as exhibition theory and image rights. Alastair J. Mann is Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Scottish History at the University of Stirling. After a career in book publishing, for three decades Alastair has researched and published widely on the Scottish early modern book, especially on copyright and censorship, including his Saltire prize-winning The Scottish Book Trade, 1500 to 1720 (2000). He is an historian of the politics of the Restoration period and has published the biography King James VII: Duke and King of Scots, 1633-1701 (2014). His work also focuses on Scottish government and parliamentary history in Scotland and Europe from 1200 onwards. In digital humanities he is co-editor of the major online resource The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707 (2008-19) at http://rps.ac.uk/ and Principal Investigator of the Leverhulme Trust funded Scottish Privy Council Project (2020-24) and co-editor of the Scottish Privy Council Records (1692-1708) (2024), at http://spcr.ac.uk/. Joseph Marshall is Director of Collections Management at the National Library of Scotland. He trained as a rare books librarian and was Head of Special Collections at Edinburgh University Library for five years. His research interests include the writings of King James VI & I and he co-edited the edition published by Ashgate in 2003. His professional interests include digitisation, preservation and metadata. Emily Wingfield is Professor of English and Older Scots Literature at the University of Birmingham. She specialises in Older Scots romance, manuscript culture, and women's literary culture, with key publications including The Trojan Legend in Medieval Scottish Literature (2014) and the Saltire-shortlisted Scotland's Royal Women and European Literary Culture 1424-1587 (2023). She is now working on an Anglophone critical edition and translation of the writings of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Editor
Associate Director for Heritage Collections and Co-Director of the Centre for Research CollectionsAssociate Director for Heritage Collections and Co-Director of the Centre for Research Collections
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Scottish HistoryUniversity of Stirling
Director of Collections ManagementNational Library of Scotland
Professor of English and Older Scots LiteratureUniversity of Birmingham
Content
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Series Editor's Preface
Introduction: Networks, Collections and Genre
Daryl Green, Alastair J. Mann, Joseph Marshall and Emily Wingfield
Part V: Individuals, Institutions and Networks
5.1 Patrons, Owners and Collectors
Royal Patronage to 1603
Emily Wingfield
Profile: The Sinclair Manuscripts
Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards
Profile: Books Belonging to Bishop William Elphinstone (1431-1514)
Jane Pirie
Private Libraries: Seventeenth-century Book Collections
Murray C. T. Simpson
Profile: Book Ownership and Circulation in Scottish Burgh and Notarial Records, 1500-1700
Thomas Brochard
Female Book Ownership and Networks from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century
Joanna Martin and Emily Wingfield
Profile: Esther Inglis (1570?-1624)
Georgianna Ziegler
Auction Catalogues
Kelsey Jackson Williams
Profile: The Library of James Nairn (1629-78)
Murray C. T. Simpson
Profile: William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649), Book Collector
Elizabeth Henderson
5.2 Institutions and Libraries
The Ownership of Manuscripts and Printed Books: Institutions and Libraries pre-1603
Allan Kennedy
Institutional Libraries: Seventeenth-century Book Collections
Murray C. T. Simpson
Profile: Royal Libraries to 1603
Rosalind K. Marshall
Profile: Buying a Library for King James VI
Alexandra Plane
Early Lending Libraries: Borrowing Books in Scotland before c. 1700
Karen Baston
Profile: Robert Leighton and his Library
Gordon Willis
Scotland's Library Catalogues of the Seventeenth Century
Murray C. T. Simpson
Part VI: Key Genres
6.1 The Books of Scripture and Liturgy
The Medieval Scottish Devotional Book
Tom Turpie
Scripture and Liturgy before 1560
Alasdair A. MacDonald
Theology, Sermons and Controversy to 1560
Stephen Mark Holmes
Profile: The Lost Gaelic Bible
Ronald Black
Scripture and Liturgy, 1560-c. 1700
David Mullan
The Debate over Faith: Controversy, Theology and Sermons c. 1580-1707
David Mullan
Profile: Greek and Hebrew Printing
Kelsey Jackson Williams
6.2 History, Chronicles and Romance
Pre-modern Scottish Romance
Rhiannon Purdie
Historiography: Manuscript Chronicles
Michael Penman
Scottish Historiography in Print 1500-1707
Nicola Royan
Profile: The Manuscripts of Walter Bower's Scotichronicon
Kate Ash-Irisarri
6.3 From Print to Performance
Music and Song to c. 1700
David J. Parkinson
Profile: Robert Carver and The Carver Choirbook
James Cook
6.4 Literature and Verse
Literary Anthologies, c. 1500-1603
Joanna Martin
Profile: David Lyndsay, The Warkis
Janet Hadley Williams
Profile: The Manuscripts of William Fowler
Allison Steenson
Literary Anthologies in Manuscript in Seventeenth-century Scotland
David J. Parkinson
6.5 Science and Medicine
Pre-Reformation Medicine and Science
Tom Turpie
Profile: The Importance of Marginalia: Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in Scotland
John Henry
Renaissance to Restoration: Medical and Scientific Books
Helen Dingwall and John Henry
Profile: Peter Lowe's Discourse: A Pioneering Surgical Book
Helen Dingwall
Profile: John Napier's Rabdologia (1617)
Richard J. Oosterhoff
6.6 Law, Philosophy and Learning
Philosophy in Pre-Reformation Scotland
Alexander Broadie
The Law in Manuscript and Print
John Finlay
Profile: Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh (c. 1636-91)
Clare Jackson
University Books
Isobel Goodman and Graham Hogg
6.7 Politics, Current Affairs and Information
Governance and Record Keeping in Manuscript and Print
Amy Blakeway
Political Thought in Early Modern Scotland
Alasdair Raffe
Profile: King James VI and I and Basilikon Doron
Eric Lindquist
News and Information Publishing
Alastair J. Mann
Current Affairs and Political Dialogue in the Seventeenth Century
Allan I. Macinnes
A Century of Almanacs and Prognostications in Scotland
Alastair J. Mann
Scotland in Maps and Atlases
Alastair J. Mann
6.8 Lives, Letters and Cheap Print
Life-writing in Early Modern Scotland
Tricia A. McElroy
The Culture of Letters in Early Modern Scotland
Helen Newsome-Chandler and Jade Scott
Profile: Speaking with the Pen: the Breadalbane Letters 1548-83
Jane Dawson
Printed Ephemera: Administrative and Commercial
Adam Fox
Vernacular Literature and Cheap Print
Adam Fox
Contributors
Secondary Bibliography
Index
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Series Editor's Preface
Introduction: Networks, Collections and Genre
Daryl Green, Alastair J. Mann, Joseph Marshall and Emily Wingfield
Part V: Individuals, Institutions and Networks
5.1 Patrons, Owners and Collectors
Royal Patronage to 1603
Emily Wingfield
Profile: The Sinclair Manuscripts
Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards
Profile: Books Belonging to Bishop William Elphinstone (1431-1514)
Jane Pirie
Private Libraries: Seventeenth-century Book Collections
Murray C. T. Simpson
Profile: Book Ownership and Circulation in Scottish Burgh and Notarial Records, 1500-1700
Thomas Brochard
Female Book Ownership and Networks from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century
Joanna Martin and Emily Wingfield
Profile: Esther Inglis (1570?-1624)
Georgianna Ziegler
Auction Catalogues
Kelsey Jackson Williams
Profile: The Library of James Nairn (1629-78)
Murray C. T. Simpson
Profile: William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649), Book Collector
Elizabeth Henderson
5.2 Institutions and Libraries
The Ownership of Manuscripts and Printed Books: Institutions and Libraries pre-1603
Allan Kennedy
Institutional Libraries: Seventeenth-century Book Collections
Murray C. T. Simpson
Profile: Royal Libraries to 1603
Rosalind K. Marshall
Profile: Buying a Library for King James VI
Alexandra Plane
Early Lending Libraries: Borrowing Books in Scotland before c. 1700
Karen Baston
Profile: Robert Leighton and his Library
Gordon Willis
Scotland's Library Catalogues of the Seventeenth Century
Murray C. T. Simpson
Part VI: Key Genres
6.1 The Books of Scripture and Liturgy
The Medieval Scottish Devotional Book
Tom Turpie
Scripture and Liturgy before 1560
Alasdair A. MacDonald
Theology, Sermons and Controversy to 1560
Stephen Mark Holmes
Profile: The Lost Gaelic Bible
Ronald Black
Scripture and Liturgy, 1560-c. 1700
David Mullan
The Debate over Faith: Controversy, Theology and Sermons c. 1580-1707
David Mullan
Profile: Greek and Hebrew Printing
Kelsey Jackson Williams
6.2 History, Chronicles and Romance
Pre-modern Scottish Romance
Rhiannon Purdie
Historiography: Manuscript Chronicles
Michael Penman
Scottish Historiography in Print 1500-1707
Nicola Royan
Profile: The Manuscripts of Walter Bower's Scotichronicon
Kate Ash-Irisarri
6.3 From Print to Performance
Music and Song to c. 1700
David J. Parkinson
Profile: Robert Carver and The Carver Choirbook
James Cook
6.4 Literature and Verse
Literary Anthologies, c. 1500-1603
Joanna Martin
Profile: David Lyndsay, The Warkis
Janet Hadley Williams
Profile: The Manuscripts of William Fowler
Allison Steenson
Literary Anthologies in Manuscript in Seventeenth-century Scotland
David J. Parkinson
6.5 Science and Medicine
Pre-Reformation Medicine and Science
Tom Turpie
Profile: The Importance of Marginalia: Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in Scotland
John Henry
Renaissance to Restoration: Medical and Scientific Books
Helen Dingwall and John Henry
Profile: Peter Lowe's Discourse: A Pioneering Surgical Book
Helen Dingwall
Profile: John Napier's Rabdologia (1617)
Richard J. Oosterhoff
6.6 Law, Philosophy and Learning
Philosophy in Pre-Reformation Scotland
Alexander Broadie
The Law in Manuscript and Print
John Finlay
Profile: Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh (c. 1636-91)
Clare Jackson
University Books
Isobel Goodman and Graham Hogg
6.7 Politics, Current Affairs and Information
Governance and Record Keeping in Manuscript and Print
Amy Blakeway
Political Thought in Early Modern Scotland
Alasdair Raffe
Profile: King James VI and I and Basilikon Doron
Eric Lindquist
News and Information Publishing
Alastair J. Mann
Current Affairs and Political Dialogue in the Seventeenth Century
Allan I. Macinnes
A Century of Almanacs and Prognostications in Scotland
Alastair J. Mann
Scotland in Maps and Atlases
Alastair J. Mann
6.8 Lives, Letters and Cheap Print
Life-writing in Early Modern Scotland
Tricia A. McElroy
The Culture of Letters in Early Modern Scotland
Helen Newsome-Chandler and Jade Scott
Profile: Speaking with the Pen: the Breadalbane Letters 1548-83
Jane Dawson
Printed Ephemera: Administrative and Commercial
Adam Fox
Vernacular Literature and Cheap Print
Adam Fox
Contributors
Secondary Bibliography
Index