Rare Books - Important Acquisitions List All
Rare Book Collections works to build up the national collections through purchases (through dealers or at auction) and donations. This directory gives details of 697 of the most important items we have acquired since 2000. We update it regularly as new material comes in. The description gives information about why it was chosen and what makes it particularly interesting. You can order the list by date of acquisition, author or title.
Please let us know what you think of this resource, if you have information to add about an acquisition, or if you have rare Scottish books that you would like to donate or sell. Email us at rarebooks@nls.uk
Important Acquisitions 151 to 165 of 697: |
Ordered by author Order by title | Order by date acquired |
| Title | The Holy Bible translated from the Latin Vulgat [sic]. [Douai version] |
| Imprint | [Dublin?] |
| Date of Publication | 1750 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This edition of the Old Testament text of the Douai Bible, the English translation used by Catholics, was revised by Richard Challoner (1691-1781) to approximate more closely to the King James Bible, and remained the standard Catholic English Bible until 1941. This copy belonged to a Jacobite who was a prominent member of an old Catholic Scottish family, James Maxwell of Kirkconnel (1708-1762). Maxwell was an officer in the Jacobite forces during the 1745 rising, and his Narrative of Charles Prince of Wales' Expedition to Scotland is one of the most important primary sources for the event. After Culloden, he escaped to France and remained in exile for five years, returning to take up his position as laird of Kirkconnel in 1750. These four volumes, all with the family bookplate and inscribed 'Kirkconnell' in a contemporary hand', could conceivably have been acquired by Maxwell for the family library, whether as an appropriate remembrance of his time abroad, or as part of his concern to renovate the family home. |
| Shelfmark | RB.s.2645 |
| Reference Sources | Bookseller's catalogue; Darlow & Moule; DNB |
| Acquired on | 26/01/07 |
| Title | [Greenock Library catalogues]. |
| Imprint | varies |
| Date of Publication | [1808-1820] |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This bound volume containing 8 catalogues and supplements to the catalogues of the subscription library at Greenock (known today as the Watt Library) is an important addition to the Library's holdings of material relating to library history in Scotland. The catalogue comes from the family library of James Watt (1736-1819) the engineer and includes a note in Watt's hand preceding the supplement for 1815. The library was established in 1783 when a number of gentlemen organized a library 'to save themselves the expence of purchasing many books, and to avert the fatal effects which are sometimes occasioned by circulating libraries'. What these 'fatal effects' were is a moot point, but the subscription libraries, were, in contrast to the circulating libraries, organized on a not-for-profit basis. Watt, born in Greenock and educated at the Grammar School there, lived in the town until he was 18, when he left to go to Glasgow (and later London) to to become an apprentice to a mathematical instrument maker. In spite of the fact that he lived and worked in Birmingham from 1773, Watt retained his links with the west of Scotland throughout his life, with frequent holidays in Glasgow and Greenock as well as overseeing a new harbour in his home town. After he retired from his firm Boulton & Watt in 1800, he continued to demonstrate his interest in Greenock, mainly as a subscriber to the library. In 1816 he gave the library the princely sume of £100 'to fom the beginning of a scientific library, for the instruction of the youth of Greenock' . By 1818, when Watt was on the 'Committee of the Greenock Library of Arts and Sciences' there were three parts to the library - arts and sciences, foreign books (from 1807 - mainly French) and the general library. In the 1812 supplementary catalogue, there is even a list of books in the juvenile library. In addition to the subscribers, scholars in the Mathematical school and 'any other respectable inhabitant' of Greenock could have access to the books relating to the 'arts and sciences'. Catalogues also on microfilm at Mf.51(7) |
| Shelfmark | RB.s.2283(1-8) |
| Reference Sources | Kaufman, P. 'The rise of community libraries in Scotland', p.254 in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America vol.59, 1965. HP1.201.1250 Kelso, William. The James Watt story. Greenock, 1997. HP2.98.585 |
| Acquired on | 07/05/03 |
| Title | [69 execution broadsides] |
| Imprint | various |
| Date of Publication | 1754-c.1850 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | A collection of 69 broadsides dating from 1754 to around 1850, all but five of which are almost certainly printed in Scotland. Most are printed in Glasgow but there are some from Edinburgh, with others most likely printed in Stirling, Perth and Ayr. The content is almost exclusively 'gallows literature' - accounts of executions and 'last speeches and dying confessions'. Highlights include the 'Last Speech and Dying Words of Robert Campbell, alias Drummond, alias Macgregor, alias Rob Roy', son of Rob Roy McGregor (1754) and a supposed account of the murder of William Hare a mere three months after the execution of his accomplice William Burke (1829). Hare actually survived until 1859. Of the 69, 59 are unique and a further 9 are known only as single copies. Surprisingly many of these executions are not recorded in Alex Young's Encyclopaedia of Scottish executions (1998), so this may be the only source we have for some of these cases. |
| Shelfmark | RB.l.238(1-69) |
| Acquired on | 17/12/07 |
| Title | A health, the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of Clare made their hired mobb[sic] drink in the Court of Requests, and places adjacent, on Friday 10th of June, 1715. |
| Imprint | [S.l., s.n.] |
| Date of Publication | 1715 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This is a curious piece of anti-Jacobite printed ephemera: a small handbill with the text of a toast proposed by two Whig peers, the Earl of Clare and Duke of Richmond. The toast wishes ill-will to, amongst others, the Pretender (James, son of the late, deposed James II/VII), the French king and all those who do not love King George I. At the time a Jacobite rebellion against the Hanoverian king, organised by leading Tory noblemen, seemed imminent, but it never came to fruition in England. In Scotland, however, events took a different course and an organised armed rebellion took place in the autumn of that year. |
| Shelfmark | AP.2.209.029 |
| Acquired on | 30/01/09 |
| Title | [The last words of James, El. Of Derwentwater] |
| Imprint | [Sl.l, s.n.] |
| Date of Publication | [1716] |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This is a remarkable broadside (68 x 50 cm) probably produced shortly after the execution in 1716 of the Jacobite leaders. It is engraved throughout and consists of the oval portraits of eight of the leaders and the last words of six of them. The British Museum Catalogue of Prints and Drawings lists a much smaller print (without any text) depicting 7 oval portraits - James III in the centre surrounded by Kenmure, Bruce, Collingwood, Paul, Hall and Gascoigne. One can only speculate on who produced this grand work and why. Presumably it was to keep alive the memory of the Jacobite leaders among their supporters in Scotland or abroad. It is however, likely that the proceeds from the sale of such a print were devoted to the relief of the executed mens' families. After the 'Old Pretender' scuttled back to France in early February 1716, the rebellion collapsed. Most of the Jacobite noblemen made their way to the continent and of those noblemen condemned to death, only Derwentwater and Kenmure actually paid the penalty. Both had been captured in the course of the skirmish at Preston. The original sentence involved them being hanged but before they died they were to be disembowelled (with the bowels burned before their faces) then beheaded and quartered. But because of their social status a mere beheading, which took place on Tower Hill in February 1716, sufficed. The fact that there was considerable sympathy, though not active support, for the Jacobite cause in Scotland, meant that the rebels were dealt with relatively leniently with many being 'allowed' to escape. The only other known copy is held by the Drambuie Liqueur Company, Edinburgh. |
| Shelfmark | RB.case.1(15) |
| Reference Sources | Kemp, Hilary. Jacobite rebellion. (London, 1975) H3.76.379 Sharp, Richard. The engraved record of the Jacobite movement. Scolar Press, 1996. H4.97.202 |
| Acquired on | 12/05/03 |
| Title | [The Seasons] With sympathy inscribed to all who love flowers and their emblems |
| Imprint | Edinburgh: T. Alexander Hill |
| Date of Publication | c.1855-80 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This is a fine example of de luxe book production in mid-Victorian Edinburgh. Bound in dark green cloth with the top board decorated in a black and gilt design repeated in blind in the lower cover, and with watered silk endpapers and gilt edges, the book is a meditation on the seasons designed primarily to feast the eye. The title page is decorated in gold and colours, and each season begins on a page with lithographed illuminated heading and colour illustration, enclosed with the text in a decorative border. The text, anonymously compiled, consists of a prose meditation on each season followed by an appropriate poem by a contemporary poet - Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jean Ingelow, Richard Chevenix Trench and Edward Bulwer Lytton. The book was the work of two significant figures involved in the production of artistic books in mid-19th century Edinburgh: the lithographer W. H. McFarlane or M'Farlane, and T. Alexander Hill (1800-66), brother of David Octavius Hill and 'printseller to the Queen' as he describes himself on the title page. Praised in his obituary for his work in improving the print selling and publishing trade, Hill was involved with the then-recently established Royal Scottish Academy as supplier and dealer. This item is therefore not only interesting as a book, but also gives valuable background to the material context surrounding Scottish 19th-century art. |
| Shelfmark | FB.l.390 |
| Reference Sources | SBTI; National Portrait Gallery directory of British artists' suppliers, 1650-1950 (http://www.npg.org.uk/research/programmes/directory-of-suppliers/h.php); bookseller's catalogue |
| Acquired on | 21/05/09 |
| Title | Saga: the magazine of Eastbank Hospital. No.1, Summer 1953. |
| Imprint | [Kirkwall: Eastbank Hospital] |
| Date of Publication | 1953 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | George Mackay Brown was the editor of this short-lived periodical published by and for the patients and staff of Eastbank Hospital in Kirkwall. A total of 5 issues were published during 1953 and 1954 and Brown contributed 23 of the 58 pieces including poetry, prose and editorials. Brown was in Eastbank being treated for tuberculosis. The title of the magazine was suggested as he said in his editorial by 'the long and bitter struggle of men' against TB. He had previously been hospitalized as a result of TB in 1940. At the time of this spell at Eastbank Brown was teaching at Newbattle Abbey College, near Dalkeith, Midlothian. His time there, where fellow Orcadian, Edwin Muir was the warden, gave Brown 'a sense of purpose and direction'. This cover illustration drawn by Ernest Marwick shows the view of Kirkwall from the hospital verandah. It is unlikely that many copies of this home-produced magazine have survived and this is therefore a very welcome edition to the Library's holdings of material by George Mackay Brown. |
| Shelfmark | FB.m.830 |
| Reference Sources | Royle, Trevor. The Mainstream companion to Scottish literature. (Edinburgh, 1993) |
| Acquired on | 08/12/08 |
| Author | - |
| Title | How true Christiane liberfie [sic] consisteth in the true service of God, and not to doe what each one listeth, as our carnall gospellers wold have it so be. [with:] A treatise shewing how the sarifice [sic] of the Holy Masse the worthie receiving of Christs bodie in the holy Sacrment [sic] the power to remite sinnes giuen to Churchmen, the praying to Saints halpe all good Chrsitians to Saluation aginst the Co[m]mon dotrine of the Proaestants [sic], which affirne that all the faithfull are Saued by only faith in the blood of Christ with a probation of purgatorie and holy images. A Rouen. Prentet in the Prent Hous of Marin Michel. 1614. |
| Imprint | A Rouen, prentet in the Prent Hous of Marin Michel. |
| Date of Publication | 1614 |
| Language | English / Scots |
| Notes | These are two extremely rare works bound in one volume which provide evidence about the continuing life of the Scottish Catholic community, fifty years after the Reformation had been legally established in this country. The first work is only known from this copy, and so it seems appropriate to give a description of its contents here. The text is divided into two parts. The first section presents the Catholic interpretation of 'true Christian liberty'; how the merits of Christ's redeeming sacrifice, obtained through receiving the sacraments, allow believers to be freed from subjection to sin and the Devil, and to live a life of charity and good works. The second section describes the Protestant understanding of Christian liberty in critical terms. Protestants, the writer argues, believe their liberty consists in not having to obey the law of God, because they have faith instead. The writer argues that Protestants consider that they can live as wickedly as they like and still expect to receive eternal salvation. They have disregard for the laws of civil society as well as for the laws of God. The writer cites the writings of Luther and Calvin to support his points. Ultimately, he claims, the Protestant's 'liberty' is slavery to Satan. He goes on to give some amusing (if improbable!) examples of Protestant liberty in action. He gives the example of a young woman asking her Protestant minister 'yf she with saue conscience might play the wanton', and the minister being obliged to reply that 'she may passe hir time with any young man she liketh best prouiding she doe the tourne quyetly without slaunder, because she is not bound in conscience to keepe the commandement of God where it is said: Thou shalt not commit adulterie, by reason of the libertie of the their Gospell'. The work ends with a sadly incomplete copy of a poem, supposedly from Martin Luther to Katherine Bora, the ex-nun whom he married. It includes the lines 'A whit I doe not caire of heauen or hell / Prouydiing in thy fauour I may duell'. The text is available in facsimile published by the Scolar Press (Ser.49.207). The second work is known from one other copy, at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It is a calmer defence of various points of Catholic doctrine, particularly the Mass, the sacraments, prayers to the saints, purgatory and holy images. The two works may well have been issued together. They are both in octavo gathered in fours, from the press of the Rouen printer Marin Michel. They are two of only three works in English / Scots produced by this press (see STC vol. III p. 254). The other work was published the following year: this is A shorte declaration of the lives and doctrinde [sic] of the Protestants and puritans, STC 20451, known in three copies only (British Library, Edinburgh University and Folger, and available on Early English Books Online (EEBO)). This work accuses the Protestant leaders of various immoralities. In particular, John Knox is arraigned for committing 'horrible incest' and using necromancy to seduce a noble lady. The writer makes it clear that he is Scottish, describing how he was told about Knox's life by a lady in Edinburgh. Other fantastic tales of Scottish ministers follow. There can be little doubt that all three works were written or compiled by the same Scottish Catholic writer. There are numerous distinctively Scottish spellings such as 'pairte', 'Magistrat', 'prent'. The only other clue to the author's identity is the initials 'I.P.' which sign the prefatory address to the second work. English recusant works printed on the Continent are fairly well-known and documented; the much smaller number of works with a Scottish connection is much less-well studied. Like other recusant publications, these texts contain interesting ideas, but the extravagant abuse levelled at the Protestants seems unlikely to have won them many converts. It is interesting to note that in the year of publication, 1614, the Jesuit John Ogilvie (eventually canonised) was carrying out his missionary work in Scotland, leading up to his martyrdom in 1615. This volume has recently been dispersed from the library of Prinknash Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Gloucestershire, England. It has different Prinknash bookplates inside the front and rear boards. It is bound in contemporary limp vellum, with a gilt flower ornament stamped in the centre of each cover. The volume is imperfect. It is stained throughout, most notably obscuring the text on the first title page. The first work has damage to leaf F3 and lacks leaf F4, which would have completed the poem mentioned above; the second work has some text missing on D2, E1 and K3, and is apparently missing a blank leaf at the end - the text ends with 'Finis' and an apologie for the printer's mistakes, and so is presumably complete. The printing throughout is poor, and suggests that the compositor was not familiar with the English or Scots languages. Nevertheless, this is a remarkable survival and an important addition to the national collections. |
| Shelfmark | RB.s.2662(1-2) |
| Reference Sources | STC 5161.5; 19072.3; ESTC S91420; S94574. Allison & Rogers, English Counter-Reformation, II 916 and 584 |
| Acquired on | 20/04/07 |
| Author | (Colbert), Hamilton, Alexander, 10th Duke of Hamilton |
| Title | Catalogue des objects d'art & de curiosite au Palais d'Hamilton |
| Date of Publication | 1838 |
| Language | French |
| Notes | A catalogue that never was. This is a quite remarkable curiosity that started life in France towards the end of the 17th Century, was bought in the early 18th Century by the 10th Duke of Hamilton and has now been purchased by the National Library of Scotland. Jean Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) was Louis XIV's principal minister, an acknowledged financial wizard and an ardent book collector. At some date late in his career, he had made up for himself a volume of some 300 folio sheets of blank paper, watermarked with his own arms and bound in a striking red morocco armorial binding, showing a version of the Colbert arms. It is not clear what Colbert intended to do with this handsome volume but it is likely that he saw it as a manuscript catalogue of his extensive book collection. If that was the intention, then it never happened, for when Alexander Hamilton, 10th Duke of Hamilton and 7th Duke of Brandon purchased it sometime in the early decades of the 19th Century it was blank throughout. The 10th Duke was a committed Francophile and renewed a dormant family claim to the Dukedom of Chatelherault in the French peerage. His intention for the volume seems clear since there is a manuscript title leaf in pen and ink 'Catalogue des objects d'art & de curiosite au Palais d'Hamilton 1838' and there are manuscript headings for various rooms of the Palace such as 'Salle Appartenante a La Bibliotheque' and 'Bibliotheque' and 'Chambre de Toilette de Madame La Duchesse'. However these headings end half way through the volume as the Duke, like Colbert before him, grew bored or forgot this fine volume. The binding is late 17th Century full red morocco, gilt-panelled, with the arms of Jean Baptist Colbert in the centre panels of the upper and lower boards, surrounded by the collar s of the order of Saint-Michel and of the Saint-Esprit, and with coroneted monograms incorporating the letters JBC both at each of the central panels and in each of the seven compartments of the spine. From the library of the Dukes of Hamilton with the Hamilton's 19th Century armorial bookplate on the front pastedown. |
| Shelfmark | Bdg.l.42 |
| Acquired on | 22/12/00 |
| Author | [Anderson, Alan] |
| Title | [Collection of c. 230 items printed by Alan Anderson at the Tragara Press] |
| Imprint | [Edinburgh & Loanhead; Tragara Press] |
| Date of Publication | 1962-2009 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This is a collection of c. 230 letterpress items printed by Alan Anderson's Tragara Press between 1962 and 2009. The Tragara Press was founded in Edinburgh the early 1950s by Alan Anderson (1922 - ), the press taking its name from the famous Punta Tragara hotel on the Italian island of Capri, a favourite holiday destination for him. It is Scotland's longest-running, and, in terms of output, most prolific private press. Alan Anderson studied printing at Edinburgh College of Art in the early 1950s, and the first book with a Tragara Press imprint appeared in 1954. However, he worked mainly as a bookseller until the 1970s before devoting himself full-time to printing and publishing. In 1986 Anderson moved to Loanhead in Midlothian and is now based in Beauly, Inverness-shire. According to the most recent bibliography of the Tragara Press by Steven Halliwell, published in 2004, between 1954 and 1991 he printed and published himself c. 150 items. These items were usually small octavo pamphlets with the print runs of 100-200 numbered copies, printed from 1969 onwards on an 'Arab' treadle platen press, although some of them have smaller print runs. Anderson's aim has been to produce good quality, appropriate printing of selected texts (he has particular interest in Norman Douglas, Oscar Wilde, John Gray, Baron Corvo and other writers of the 1890s/early 20th-century) at affordable prices. His printing is characterised by its emphasis on typography rather than illustration and by its elegant, austere design; his books are now collectors' items among bibliophiles. He has also produced a substantial body of work from the 1950s onwards, usually contemporary poetry, which has been privately commissioned by other presses and by friends. From 1991 onwards his printing has been exclusively for other publishers, with the exception of his 2004 anthology of poems "Blue Remembered Hills". The Library has collected Tragara Press items for several years and held an exhibition of the Press's work in 2005. This collection supplements NLS's existing holdings of Tragara Press material by adding examples of work printed for other presses, such as Alan Clodd's Enitharmon Press and David Tibet's Durtro Press; it also includes examples of very rare printed ephemera, proof copies and variant printings on different papers, enabling one to trace the different stages in the printing of the individual publications. |
| Shelfmark | Trag.C |
| Reference Sources | S. Halliwell, "Fifty years of hand-printing: a bibliography of the Tragara Press", High Wycombe, 2005. |
| Acquired on | 12/11/10 |
| Author | [Andrew Bennett] |
| Title | The book of St Andrews Links |
| Imprint | St Andrews: J.& G. Innes |
| Date of Publication | 1898 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | A rare early book on golf, printed in St Andrews, which the author describes as the 'mecca of golf'. The author, not named in the publication, was Andrew Bennett, (1871-1958), who would later serve as Secretary of St Andrews University and who, in addition to his interest in golf, was a keen amateur poet and artist. The book contains the rules and regulations of the game, information on the Old and New courses in St Andrews (including a colour map showing their location) and a selection of golfing rhymes. Only 1,000 copies of this edition were printed. |
| Shelfmark | RB.s.2724 |
| Reference Sources | Donovan & Murdoch, "The game of golf and the printed word, 1566-1985 : a bibliography of golf literature in the English language " (Endicott, NY, 1988)no. 690 JSF Murdoch "The Murdoch golf library" (Droitwich, 1991)no. 57 |
| Acquired on | 05/09/08 |
| Author | [Anon.] |
| Title | Shipped by the grace of God in good o[r]der ... by Ro[bert] Stuart for Henry Leivie ... |
| Imprint | [Edinburgh?: s.n.], |
| Date of Publication | [1671?] |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This is a rare piece of 17th-century printed ephemera, presumably printed in Scotland, namely a bill of lading (a document issued by a carrier to a shipper, acknowledging that specified goods have been received on board as cargo for transport to a named place for delivery to the consignee, who is usually identified on the bill). Manuscript inscriptions in blank spaces on the bill give details of the persons involved. It records the shipment of six tons of wines "fully well conditioned" from Bordeaux to Leith on 30 October 1671 on the "David" of Bruntiland (Burntisland) captained by Patrick Angus. The wine was destined for the merchant William Inglish (Inglis?) of Leith. The bill is signed by Patrick Stuart and has a MS note on the back by him. Scotland had been importing wine from France since the Middle Ages; thanks to the Auld Alliance Scottish merchants had the privilege of having the first choice of Bordeaux's finest wines. Leith was the centre for importing French wine, which was prized by the upper classes. This printed document shows that despite the political and religious upheavals which made trade with France more difficult (the Reformation, Union of the Crowns) the Scots were still using their privilege of selecting Bordeaux wines in the 1670s. |
| Shelfmark | RB.s.2770 |
| Acquired on | 24/11/09 |
| Author | [Anon.] |
| Title | Scotch gallantry display'd: or the life and adventures of the unparralel'd [sic] Col. Fr-nc-s Ch-rt-s, impartially related. With some remarks on other writers on this subject. |
| Imprint | London: printed for, and sold by the booksellers in town and country, |
| Date of Publication | 1730 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This is the rare first edition of a pamphlet which gives an account of the life of the infamous Francis Charteris (c.1665-1732), gambler and rake, who was born in Edinburgh, and whose family were major landowners in Scotland. The work was published at the height of his notoriety; in December 1729 Charteris was charged with the attempted rape of Ann Bond, one of his maidservants, who had been in his employment for only a few days. After hearing testimony from the girl herself, as well as from fellow servants, Charteris was found guilty and in February 1730 was sentenced to death by hanging. It was unusual at the time for a gentleman to be punished for what many contemporaries considered an act of gallantry, and his conviction may have been secured by influential parties hostile to Charteris. The rape, however, was just one such in a long career of gambling, extortion, and serial seduction, usually of tall young lower class girls (Charteris was 6 feet tall), recently arrived in London, ensnared by one of his employees and brought to his houses in the West End. If unable to secure their favours by fair means, he would resort to force. Charteris, however, escaped the gallows. On the advice of judges, privy council, and his advocate, Duncan Forbes (another legatee of Charteris's will), George II granted him a full pardon on 10 April. The trial and its aftermath had incurred expenses amounting to £15,000, but Charteris's personal fortune was estimated at £200,000 so this was a sum he could well afford. He may have bought his freedom, but for the rest of his life Charteris was vilified, and was once physically attacked in his coach. He left London for good in 1730, retiring to his property in Lancashire before returning to Scotland in February 1732. He died the following month at his Stony Hill estate near Musselburgh, after using "Opiates in great Quantities" (The Country Journal, 4 March 1732. At his burial in the family vault at the Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh, the populace gave a "loud Huzza" (Fog's Weekly Journal, 11 March 1732). Only one copy (in the British Library) is recorded in ESTC. |
| Shelfmark | RB.s.2755 |
| Reference Sources | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |
| Acquired on | 07/05/09 |
| Author | [Anon.] |
| Title | A geographical history of Nova Scotia |
| Imprint | London: Paul Vaillant |
| Date of Publication | 1749 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This is one of the earliest printed accounts of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, which describes the rival claims of the French and British to the region. Writing for prospective settlers, the anonymous author in the preface says he has drawn on his own observations and those of the French Jesuit priest turned historian Pierre Charlevoix when writing his book. He stresses the importance of Nova Scotia to British trade and the security of the other British North American settlements in view of increasing tensions with French settlers (which eventually led to war). The book also includes descriptions of the Indians living in the area and their relations with the European settlers. |
| Shelfmark | RB.s.2704 |
| Reference Sources | Bookseller's catalogue |
| Acquired on | 11/04/08 |
| Author | [Anon] |
| Title | The puzzling cap: a choice collection of riddles |
| Imprint | Glasgow : J. & M. Robertson |
| Date of Publication | 1784 |
| Language | English |
| Notes | This is an unrecorded early Scottish childrens book in pocket-size format with original wrappers. Childrens books of this format and age are particularly rare. It consists of 18 riddles, with woodcut vignettes illustrating each one, which are as follows: The Miser, A Dark Lanthorn, Merry Andrew, A Ship, A Bear, A Parrot, A Cock, Robin Red Breast, A Cuckow, A Tree, A Wind-Mill, A Lark, A Doll, A Cuckold, Charity, Solomon's Temple, A Monkey, A Whale, A Watch. These were presumably popular verses of the time although the modern reader may find the inclusion of a riddle about a cuckold in a children's book to be curious to say the least. Various 18th-century printings of works entitled the "Puzzling cap", sometimes attributed to 'Billy Wiseman', survive; most of them being American imprints. NLS and UCLA have imperfect copies of 1786 printing of this work by Robertson of Glasgow; there is also a much longer version of the "Puzzling cap" printed by Newbery of London, also in 1786, but nothing as early as this copy, which makes it a remarkable early survival of a Scottish children's book. |
| Shelfmark | RB.s.2829 |
| Acquired on | 18/11/11 |
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