P.B.F.A. BOOK FAIRS IN SCOTLAND 2020

MAY ‘20 AUGUST ‘20 OCTOBER ‘20 Sat 23 Sat 1 Sun 25 SCOTTISH GLAMIS Aberdeen BORDERS Bridge View House Hilton Treetops Corn Exchange Glamis, Glamis Hotel, 161 Road, Market DD8 1QU Springfield Road Square, Melrose, 10am-5pm. £1 AB15 7AQ Scottish Borders 10am-4.30pm. £1 TD6 9PN Sun 2 10am-4.30pm. £1 BALLATER For more Vicoria Hall, information on JUNE ‘20 Station Square, P.B.F.A bookfairs, Sat 13 Ballater AB35 5QB please visit the 10am-5pm. £1 website or contact Augustine Church us using the Hall, 41 George IV SEPTEMBER ‘20 details below. Bridge, Edinburgh Sat 19 EH1 1EL EDINBURGH 10am-5pm. £1 Augustine Church Hall, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EL 10am-5pm. £1

SPRING 2020 | DISCOVER | 27 ALLAN RAMSAY Writing the Scots Enlightenment

Poet Allan Ramsay played a vital he Union between Scotland and England was yet to take place when role in keeping the Allan Ramsay (1684-1758) arrived in Edinburgh at the turn of the alive at a time when some of his 18th century to train as an apprentice fellow countrymen and women were wigmaker. While this profession would sustain him financially, it was a love becoming embarrassed with their of literature that was his true calling. In the bustling Tbut cramped Scottish capital, Ramsay met with “Scotticisms”. The literary foundations like-minded individuals who came together to discuss that he laid were later built upon by literature and politics. Clubs were hives of intellectual activity during the Robert Fergusson and Robert Burns. Enlightenment, and Ramsay was an active participant in one of the most significant Edinburgh clubs of the period, the Easy Club. Founded in 1712, it was self-consciously modelled on the great periodical of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, The Spectator, with members taking literary names as their aliases. However, in 1713 there was a suggestion to change the pseudonyms of the members from predominantly English to Scottish literary figures as this would demonstrate “a dutiful respect to the heroes and authors of their own nation by choosing them for their patrons”. Ramsay adopted the name of Gavin Douglas, who had completed a Scots translation of Virgil’s Aeneid in 1513. Years later, as a testament to his own literary contribution to Scottish letters, Ramsay became the subject of critical debate among the next generation of clubbable Scots. In 1779, the Pantheon Club of Edinburgh debated “Whether have the Exertions of Allan Ramsay or Robert Fergusson done more Honour to Scotch Poetry?” Such was the admiration for Ramsay that out of seven members who took an active role in the debate, only one argued the case for Fergusson. Ramsay’s commitment to Scots as a means

28 | DISCOVER | SPRING 2020 of literary expression was outlined in his preface to Poems (1721) where he stated: “That I have exprest my Thought in my native Dialect, was not only my Inclination, but the Desire of my best and wisest Friends.” He also had an eye on the literary market beyond Scotland as he noted that: “The Scotticisms, which perhaps may offend some over-nice Ear, give new Life and Grace to the Poetry, and become their Place as well as the Doric Dialect of Theocritus, so much admired by the best Judges.” In 1724 Ramsay published The Ever Green, which was a collection of Scots poems “wrote by the Ingenious before 1600”. For his source material, Ramsay used the (now held at the National Library of Scotland) which had been compiled by the Edinburgh merchant George Bannatyne in the 1560s. However, Ramsay did not remain editorially neutral, and instead made a number of alterations, which included an addition to ’s Lament for the Makaris to incorporate a prophecy relating to himself. Indeed, Ramsay also made a contribution to the original manuscript, where he added a poem at the end of one of the volumes. As his reputation grew, Ramsay turned his hand to drama and wrote The Gentle Shepherd (1725). The play tells the tale of Patie, a poor but virtuous shepherd, who falls in love with Peggy, a shepherdess. Although POWERFUL WORDS: Allan Ramsay paved the way for other greats it could be read as a simple pastoral of Scottish poetry. Above, his collection The Ever work celebrating rustic manners and Green gathered Scots poems from before 1600 characters, it also contained elements and contained a glossary to aid understanding of Jacobitism, with the exiled Sir William Worthy returning to his rightful inheritance as metaphor for support for the Stuart cause. It was soon converted into a ballad opera (1729) and remained development. His son, also named Allan Ramsay popular throughout the 18th century and into the early (1713-1784), would go on to become one of the 19th century, in both Scotland and England. most prominent portrait painters of the Scottish Ramsay was a literary innovator, but he was also Enlightenment and ultimately attain the position an innovator in the delivery of literature itself. Around of Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King in 1767. 1725, he established the first circulating library in Before Ramsay Jr reached these heights, in the Britain from his premises at the Luckenbooths on 1730s his father actively sought aid from the provost the High Street. The endeavour was not universally of Edinburgh and other patrons such as Sir John celebrated however, and there was some Presbyterian Clerk of Penicuik to help raise funds and use their pushback against the library after he stocked it with influence to send his son to Italy to improve his artistic several translations of French plays in 1736. talents. Ramsay Jr left for Italy in 1736, where on his Ramsay was eager to promote the stage in travels he met the exiled Stuarts, including the Old Edinburgh and believed that it would bring a number Pretender James and the Young Pretender Charles of economic benefits to the city. Between 1735 and 1736 Edward Stuart. a theatre was constructed in Carrubber’s Close, but the Shortly before his son left for Italy, Ramsay Sr 1737 Licencing Act was to cause Ramsay significant purchased land on the Castlehill to build a new house problems in staging plays. In an attempt to censure on a site which is still called Ramsay Garden. The political expression in performances, it banned plays house became known as Goose Pie House owing to outside London except during the king’s residence. the octagonal shape of the building, which resembled This was seized on by the local authority in Edinburgh 18th century goose pie tins. It was taken over by who zealously enforced the Act. Ramsay Jr in 1741, but still used by his father as a place Although he continued to defend the stage to enjoy his retirement until his death in 1758, by which vigorously and to enlist the support of key patrons, time Ramsay the poet had firmly secured his literary Ramsay was forced to close his theatre in 1739 after reputation in the Scottish Enlightenment. several of his actors were fined £50 by the Court of Session. Such were the debts of the theatre that  Until 16 May, a Collections in Focus display at Ramsay was required to sell the wood furnishings the National Library of Scotland will showcase some in order to raise sufficient capital. of the highlights of our collections relating to Allan Despite these setbacks to his cultural ambitions, Ramsay drawn from the Library’s Manuscript and Ramsay remained committed to Scottish cultural Printed Book collections.

SPRING 2020 | DISCOVER | 29 BUILDING FROM BITS

Computing power can find connections, trends and even beauty where the human eye might not. Digital Scholarship Librarian Sarah Ames explains how the resources of our Data Foundry are being used in some unusual ways.

THE DATA FOUNDRY

WORDS: WHAT IS DIGITAL (TEI); others turn digitised material into Sarah Ames SCHOLARSHIP? computer games. Digital Scholarship Librarian Digital scholarship is a broad term When we use computers to analyse encompassing the use of computational collections, we can begin to explore the or digital methods to enable new forms collections at a scale that we haven’t e recently launched of research, learning, teaching or creative been able to do previously. These our Data Foundry outputs. This is why we are making our techniques also open the collections website, the Library’s collections available in machine-readable up to new uses for research, as well open data platform form – as data – to support and encourage as exciting creative interpretations. for digital scholarship. these new uses of the collections. WHome to the Library’s ‘collections as Digital scholarship could involve 3,000 SCOTTISH CHAPBOOKS… data’, it includes digitised material, carrying out text and data mining AS MUSIC! metadata collections, organisational data (TDM) on collections, for example: using Shawn Graham (Associate Professor of and geospatial information – all made computers to analyse texts at scale to Digital Humanities at Carleton University) available as ‘datasets’. There are plans uncover broad changes over time, which spotted the release of our Scottish to include audio-visual data and web the human brain wouldn’t be able to Chapbooks (small paper-covered archive data in the future. compute, or which we wouldn’t have the booklets) dataset on social media. time to find out. Or Spanning 1671-1893, and containing it could mean using nearly 11 million words, this collection artificial intelligence provides some exciting opportunities and machine learning for analysis. for creative purposes Shawn used computational techniques to make new to identify and group the chapbooks into works based on the broad topics. Then, using the TwoTone collections. It might app, he transformed this data into music, mean geolocating creating a ‘Song of Scottish Publishing’. places within texts Different instruments represent different and visualising them topics, so, for example, the trumpet on maps. Some people represents chapbooks which feature produce new, digital the ‘fortune-making’ topic; the double- editions of texts using bass relates to ‘histories’; the harp is for mark-up languages chapbooks with themes of love. The such as the result is a musical ‘data visualisation’ Text Encoding covering more than 200 years of Initiative Scottish chapbooks.

30 | DISCOVER | SPRING 2020 LEFT: Martin Disley’s Tay and Forth bridges art project BELOW: Yifeng Gao, Bibo Tian and Xue Feng’s Minecraft based on the Encyclopedia Britannica

work explores the Tay and Forth Bridge photographic collections, creating haunting images of ghostly bridges.

DATA VISUALISATION PROJECTS We have been working with the University of Edinburgh’s Design Informatics students, who have been using Library datasets to learn about, and create, data visualisations. Projects include analysis of 100 years of Encyclopaedia Britannica; visualising the spread of disease in A Medical History of British India; and exploring late-19th century spiritualist newspapers. One group (Yifeng Gao, Bibo Tian and Xue Feng) mapped their data analysis of Encyclopaedia Britannica into a Minecraft world, which you can explore on a rollercoaster. Another group (Vaida Plankyte, Haonan Li and Wan Erh Hsieh) produced a website with extensive analysis of the encyclopaedias over time, as well as a game, through which you can When we use computers to analyse interact with the data. collections, we can begin to explore the collections at a scale that we haven’t been able to do previously

HIGH-PERFORMANCE taking into account the COMPUTING MEETS changing lengths of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA different editions. Topics Melissa Terras (Professor of Digital searched for included Cultural Heritage, University of sports, Scottish Edinburgh and a member of the Library philosophers, Scottish Board) and Rosa Filgueira (The Alan cities and animals, Turing Institute and Edinburgh Parallel showing the changing Computing Centre, EPCC) have used focus of Britannica as EPCC’s supercomputer facilities more editions were produced. And to produce some exploratory analysis now this infrastructure is in place, the of the first eight editions of team can begin to ask more complex Encyclopaedia Britannica, as part questions of data, and work with of a collaborative project to create historians to see how this changes what FIND OUT MORE a text and data mining platform. they can ask of the sources. These projects, and many others, are Text mining historical text has a featured on the Data Foundry website. number of challenges, including the ARTIST IN RESIDENCE Find out about a project to LiDAR-scan quality of the data, changes in page Martin Disley is the Library’s artist-in- the George IV Bridge building; how layouts, and the size of the dataset. residence until summer 2020. As a new students are learning about digital Nearly 100 years of Encyclopaedia media artist, Martin has experience humanities through the A Medical Britannica takes a normal computer of using digital methods to create art History of British India dataset; and how a long time to ‘read’! installations. Funded by the Creative the Library’s collections are being used To produce useful outputs, there are Informatics AHRC project, Martin to teach text and data mining around a number of stages the computer must is exploring the use of generative the world. run through, including ‘normalising’ the adversarial networks (GAN) – a form of https://data.nls.uk/projects data (turning letters to lowercase and machine learning – with the collections, removing everything that isn’t a letter) to create new artworks based on the  For more information, or if you have and calculating word frequency by Library’s digitised material. One early any questions, contact [email protected]

SPRING 2020 | DISCOVER | 31 THE SCOTTISH GENEALOGY SOCIETY Family History Centre

All Scotland’s OPRs on film… census records… Largest M.I. collection in Scotland and free access to www.ancestry.co.uk and www.findmypast.co.uk Open 5 days a week, except Friday & Sunday Contact us at 15 Victoria Terrace, Edinburgh EH1 2JL Telephone 0131 220 3677 [email protected] www.scotsgenealogy.com

To advertise in this magazine please contact [email protected]

TEXT AND CONTEXT: British and Irish Literature from 1900 to the present Modernism; Contemporary Literature; Scottish Literature

CREATIVE WRITING

CONTEMPORARY BRITSH AND IRISH THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE

FURTHER DETAILS AND AN APPLICATION FORM ARE AVAILABLE FROM

+44 131-650 4369/4368 www.suiss.ed.ac.uk [email protected]

32 | DISCOVER | SPRING 2020 EXPLORE THE LIBRARY Great Library resources…

Our collections include about 30 million printed items. Then there’s the two million maps, Join 32,000 films, three miles of YOUR NATIONAL manuscripts, and photographs LIBRARY by the thousand. We’re in three TODAY! locations in two cities – and online at www.nls.uk … come to us to find the answer you need.

MAIN VISITOR CENTRE Where you will find our print collections, rare books, and manuscripts, as well as reading rooms and digital facilities. The exhibition space, café and shop are also here. George IV Bridge Edinburgh EH1 1EW Phone: 0131 623 3700 Email: [email protected] Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 09:30–19:00 Wednesday 10:00–19:00 Friday and Saturday 09:30–17:00

FILM AND DIGITAL COLLECTIONS Ideal for informal browsing or for those seeking a specialist viewing – or if you You will need a Library card if you or pick one up in person at George want access to our outstanding want to use our reading rooms or IV Bridge in Edinburgh. digital facilities. order items from our collection. Don’t forget, you will need to Kelvin Hall You can apply for a card online bring proof of identity and 1445 Argyle Street at auth.nls.uk/registration confirmation of your address. Glasgow G3 8AW Phone: 0845 366 4629 Email: [email protected] Tuesday, Thursday, Friday ONLINE AT www.nls.uk and Saturday 10:00–17:00 We have vast and growing Additional conditions may apply in Wednesday 13:30–20:00 resources available on our website, line with our licence agreements. including digital versions of We also hold websites in the UK MAPS reference works, full-text facsimiles domain web archive, and articles Our Maps Reading and business databases. or chapters from e-books and Room is available by If you live in Scotland and register e-journals. Library card holders can appointment. Come in and see with the Library, many of these view these at our George IV Bridge the world. resources are freely available. and Kelvin Hall sites. Causewayside Building 33 Salisbury Place Edinburgh EH9 1SL Phone: 0131 623 4660 ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR? Email: [email protected] Pre-order your material before coming to the Library if you want to save Monday–Thursday yourself time. You will find our catalogue on our website. If you don’t have 10:00–13:00 a Library card but want to enquire about an item, phone 0131 623 3820 or 14:00–17:00 complete our enquiry form www.nls.uk/contact/ask-a-librarian

SPRING 2020 | DISCOVER | 33 MEMORY LANE Pantomimes on the pitch

recent acquisition by the refer to Brayman as a pantomime star and National Library of Scotland comedienne, who had toured South Africa is a team photograph of during the autumn of 1911. No mention is women footballers – the only made of film appearances in the States. clue, the date 1918 scrawled Such was the success of the 1917 event Aon the front of the image. that a second carnival at Powderhall was There are few records of women’s held on 31 January, 1918. In the build-up, football in Edinburgh during the First aircraft flew over Edinburgh dropping World War, but two matches held during leaflets advertising the event. There would 1917 and 1918 stand out. also be a fly past on the day itself. The games were part of the Vaudeville The match was between the casts Sports Carnivals organised by the of Jack and the Beanstalk and Humpty impresario Fred Lumley to raise money Dumpty and the picture in the Library’s for war charities. The first carnival was possession is of the Theatre Royal XI, who held on 30 January, 1917 at Powderhall to were appearing in Humpty Dumpty. benefit the services canteen at Waverley From publicity pictures, it is possible Station. The women’s football match was to put names to some faces in the line-up. between the casts of the pantomimes Red Aida Mozelle, one half of the Sparkling Riding Hood and Cinderella. Mozelles, stands second from the left. During the contest, referee for the day, Sister Millicent sits just below her. Their the boxer Tancy Lee, contrived to score father was showman Theodor Reed. both goals in a 1-1 draw. With theatrical Julia de Lacy, then a rising star in stars such as Maudie Frances and Belle London’s West End, stands third from the Mora taking part, the bulk of the press left holding a football while Madge White, coverage centred on Marie Brayman, who who had leading roles in London and they confusingly named Gladys Ford. Edinburgh, is on the far right. There were Pictures from the game were published no reports of the 1918 carnival – only abroad, with one US paper identifying a picture feature in the Daily Record. Brayman as Grace Ford – a former starlet Within a few years, the Edinburgh of the Lubin film studios of Philadelphia. Ladies team would form. The crowd This seems to be a case of mistaken attracted to Tynecastle for their match identity but it is hard to prove as few of with Dick Kerr in 1921 would not see a Seigmond Lubin’s films have survived. novelty featuring panto stars but a real Production notes for Red Riding Hood sport, played by proper athletes.

34 | DISCOVER | SPRING 2020