National Library of Scotland: Publisher of the Month

Publishing at the National Library of Scotland

About NLS

The National Library of Scotland is the place to come to study Scottish history, culture and ideas. Our collections, the biggest in Scotland, house over 14 million books, maps, manuscripts, films, photographs and all sorts of ephemera from down the centuries to the present day. The research potential of this material is vast and perpetual.

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Our books

The Library has a long history of publishing. In recent years we have focussed our activity in this area around a small number of key collections with broad appeal and interest. These range in subject matter from the history of printing and publishing in Scotland, to the treasures found in the archive of the pioneering John Murray publishing firm and the early origins of Scotland’s best-loved sport, golf.

Scottish Printed Books 1508 – 2008
By Antony Kamm

Cover of Scottish Printed Books

Foreword by Alexander McCall Smith

In Scotland, printing began in 1508. This lively account of the next 500 years introduces notable books and other printed literature, the people who wrote, printed, published, and sold them, and their methods. It also reveals some memorable talents and describes Scotland’s remarkable dynastic contributions. Highlights include bibles; proclamations and the secret press; public and personal education; scientific, technological, and medical books; broadsides and chapbooks; figures of the Scottish Enlightenment; poetry and drama; and a timeline of significant events and curiosities. Many of the images from rare books in National Library of Scotland collections are reproduced for the first time.

Antony Kamm is an author and former lecturer in publishing studies at Stirling University.

A Swing Through Time
By Olive M. Geddes

Cover of A Swing Through Time

In the absence of tangible evidence, it is to written sources that we must turn for reliable information on the mysterious and controversial origins of golf.

Using the material in the National Library of Scotland and elsewhere, this book looks at golf from the 1457 Act of Parliament banning it, to the first Rules of Golf in 1744. Quotes from the original documents and books are reproduced, while transcripts, commentary and interpretation of the sources illuminate not only the early days of golf, but also the society which gave rise to the world’s most internationally popular game.

This is an expanded reissue of the title first published by the National Library of Scotland in 1992, complete with transcriptions of manuscripts containing fascinating evidence of the game’s development.

Olive M. Geddes is a Senior Curator in the Manuscripts Collection Division of the National Library of Scotland, with responsibility for its early sporting archives.

Co-published by
National Museums Scotland and National Library of Scotland

Ideas that Shaped the World: An Introduction to the John Murray Archive
Edited by David McClay

Foreword by Magnus Linklater

Glimpse into the fascinating political, social and intellectual life of the John Murray publishing firm's heyday, via the correspondence of authors such as Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Disraeli and many other influential figures whose work made the modern world. Richly illustrated throughout, it draws on unique source material from the archive and shows what a publisher's archive tells us about their authors and the world they inhabited.

Books we’ve published with others

Because of the rich and diverse nature of our collections, we occasionally work in association with commercial publishers on books which attractively reproduce treasured material, supplemented with contemporary essays, notes and other interpretative content. Here is a small selection of recent titles published in this way.

John Thomson's Atlas of Scotland, 1832

In 1832 John Thomson published the first large-scale atlas of Scotland organised by county. The Atlas contains 58 large format, double-page maps of mainland Scotland, the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland. This high-quality limited edition is case-bound in real cloth with a protective slip-case, contains two introductory essays by Professor Charles W. Withers of the University of Edinburgh and Chris Fleet and Paula Williams of NLS, plus a full index of places.

The Blaeu Atlas of Scotland

Joan Blaeu’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Sive Atlas Novus, Volume V published in 1654 was, effectively, the first atlas of Scotland. This wonderful book provides a unique view and record of Scotland 350 years ago. With beautiful reproductions of all 48 original hand-coloured maps of Scotland, this edition also features a complete English translation of the Latin text by I. C. Cunningham. Produced as closely as possible to the format and size of the original edition, this publication features images from the original Atlas. Other material, published for the first time, illustrates how the Atlas was first created.

Daniell's Scotland
A Voyage Around the Coast of Scotland and the Adjacent Isles

This beautifully produced two-volume set presents the Scottish sections of Daniell’s A Voyage Around Great Britain. First published between 1815 and 1822, the Voyage is one of the finest of the illustrated topographical and travel books that were so popular in early nineteenth-century Britain.

The first volume is a facsimile edition of the Scottish sections of the text. The second volume presents high-quality reproductions of 157 of Daniell’s exquisite aquatints of Scotland’s lochs, shores, mountains, islands and castles.

The publication is enhanced by the addition of two scholarly contributions by the historian Elizabeth Bray and Dr Iain Gordon Brown, Principal Curator of Manuscripts at the National Library of Scotland.

March 2009

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Last modified Friday 25 March 2011