walter scott inside the waverley novels

The magazine of the National Library of | www.nls.uk | Issue 11 Spring 2009

INSIDE The curious case of Eadweard Muybridge boost your business the man who built winnie-the-pooh make do and mend

Caledonia calling How Scottish music travelled the globe from Australia to Nova Scotia welcome

From Haydn to horses, via a revived Walter Scott

am delighted to be able to welcome you to the latest Discover NLS. As ever, we have a packed I issue reflecting activity right across the Library. Already, 2009 is proving to be an exciting year Already 2009 for us and in our news section you will find updates on some is proving to upcoming events, as well as news of online developments. be an exciting DISCOVER NLS year for us Issue 11 SPRING 2009 On our features pages, the Library’s Head of Music, Almut Boehme, reports on a new exhibition that looks at the CONTACT US We welcome all comments, worldwide legacy of Scots music – from Haydn’s arrangements questions, submissions and subscription enquiries. of Scottish tunes to the roots of African-American blues and Please write to us at the National Library of Scotland soul. Elsewhere we reflect on the life and achievements of address below or email Patrick Geddes, a truly multi-talented man who is today [email protected] perhaps best known as ‘the father of town planning’. FOR NLS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF With the economy very much on people’s minds, we take a Alexandra Miller timely look back at a selection of those government MANAGING EDITOR Julian Stone publications that suggested we ‘make do and mend’, and Director of Development AND EXTERNAL AFFAIRS highlight how the Library’s Scottish Business Information Teri Wishart Service can help support today’s enterprises. EDITORIAL ADVISER Willis Pickard We are also pleased to include some of the extraordinary

CONTRIBUTORS photographic work of Eadweard Muybridge – a man Robert Betteridge, Almut committed to capturing animals in motion, and we bring you Boehme, Dr Iain G Brown, Duncan Campbell, John Coll, a report by Dr Iain Gordon Brown on the Library’s part in the Paul Cunnea, Chris Fleet, Olive Geddes, Gill Hamilton, project to restore the text of Walter Scott’s Waverley Novels. Sally Harrower, Andrew So sit back, relax and enjoy spring with your issue of Martin, Nicholas Oddy, Jude Rogers, Malcolm Tait, Discover NLS. Jan Usher

EDITOR Jack Kibble-White [email protected] Design Matthew Ball Sub-editorS Anne Boyle,

(NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND), LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE OF SCOTTISH MUSIC ON P18 ON MUSIC SCOTTISH OF INFLUENCE INTERNATIONAL THE ABOUT MORE LEARN SCOTLAND), OF GALLERIES (NATIONAL Clare Harris, Andrew Littlefield Publisher John Innes Duncan Campbell [email protected] Director of Corporate Services ADVERTISING Julie Twaddell y raeburn y 0141 582 1280 henr PUBLISHED by y sir y Think Scotland b Woodside House 20-23 Woodside Place The three most popular NLS images on Flickr Glasgow G3 7QF

composer 0141 582 1280

and ISSN 1751-5998 (print) ISSN 1751 6005 (online)

National Library of Scotland George IV Bridge Edinburgh EH1 1EW Telephone 0131 623 3700 , 1727-1807, violinist 1727-1807, , Fax 0131 623 3701 gow Email [email protected] 1st 2nd 3rd , niel , The National Library of Scotland is a registered HOW DO I LOVE THEE? ROBERT LOUIS

cover Scottish charity. Scottish HE IS FOND OF FLYING Phoebe Anna Traquair’s STEVENSON’S TOMB Charity No. SC011086 A young fox attaches himself to the RAF and manuscript of ‘Sonnets Stevenson’s burial spot on front www.nls.uk becomes the squadron mascot from the Portuguese’ Mount Vaea, Western Samoa

www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 3 contents

6 nls NAVIGATION 26 A handy one-page guide Dr Iain Gordon to what’s in the Library Brown on Scott’s Waverley Novels 7 neWS In this issue, a new website lays Victorian plans over satellite imagery, the Library attends the Book Fair and a Scots version of a much-loved tale

13 NLS DIGITAL RESOURCES A guide to the Library’s licensed digital collections

14 FROZEN IN MOTION Robert Betteridge presents amazing images from the Library’s Muybridge collection

16 THE HEART OF THE BUSINESS John Coll on how NLS’ SCOTBIS can help all kinds of businesses

18 cALEDONIA CALLING FROM AROUND THE Scott wrote WORLD Scottish music has had an extremely important global influence, quickly, as Almut Boehme reveals completing 22 A MAN OF ALL REASON texts in Patrick Geddes was a months or polymath who inspired the admiration of Darwin even weeks and Einstein. Malcolm Tait finds out more

26 RESTORING SCOTT TO HIMSELF A grand project to create Contributors to this issue include an authoritative text of Scott’s Waverley Novels reaches its conclusion. Dr Iain Gordon Brown reports

28 MY NLS Design historian Nicholas Oddy on his Library life scotland 29 PROFESSIONAL Jude Rogers Robert Betteridge Dr Iain Gordon Brown John Coll of PRACTICE A music writer Robert works in the Principal Curator in Business Information Gill Hamilton on how to for The Guardian, NLS’ Rare Book the Manuscript Services Manager, get better search results The Word and the Collections Division Collections Division, John is responsible galleries New Statesman, and is a co-curator of Iain has worked for SCOTBIS, the 30 LIBRARY LINKS Jude is also a Mercury Zig-Zag: The Paths of extensively on Scott Library’s business

national Banking in the collections Music Prize judge Robert Burns and his world information service

www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 5 your guide NLS Navigation You may be a first-time visitor or a regular of the Reading Room, but with a collection of around 14 million printed items, two million maps, 32,000 films, over three miles of manuscripts plus thousands of photos and journals, getting around NLS requires a little navigation How to join Using the Online To use the Library’s reading NLS has a vast range of rooms and order up items Library electronic resources, from the collections, you With a Reader’s Card including digital versions of need to hold a Reader’s card. you gain access to the reference works such as Anyone can apply for one. An reading rooms, from where Who’s Who and the Oxford application form can be you can view material held Dictionary of National picked up at George IV Bridge in the Library’s collection. Biography; massive full-text or the Causewayside Requests for specific items facsimiles of entire printed Building, or downloaded from can be made in person, collections, including Times www.nls.uk. To complete by telephone: 0131 623 3700, Digital Archive 1785-1985; your application you will by email: [email protected] and business resources such need proof of identity (a or through the Library as Frost & Sullivan databases. driving licence, passport or website at www.nls.uk. Many of these are available matriculation card are all If you know what you’re over the Internet to readers valid) and a recent utilities looking for, we recommend living in Scotland (although bill. Photos, for identification you make your request in restrictions do apply to some purposes, can be taken at advance of your visit to resources, in line with A public tour of the Library Readers’ Registration. the Library. publishers’ licence agreements). Your first port of call to unlock the Library’s online collection is www.nls.uk/catalogues NLS locations Films Scottish Screen Archive 39-41 Montrose Avenue Hillington Park, Glasgow G52 4LA Tel 0845 366 4600 (local rate) Email [email protected]

Maps Causewayside Building The Causewayside building 33 Salisbury Place, Edinburgh EH9 1SL Tel 0131 623 3970 Email [email protected] Opening hours Monday- Friday 9.30am-5pm (except Wednesday 10am-5pm), Saturday 9.30am-1pm

All other collections George IV Bridge, Focus on MOUNTAINEERING Edinburgh EH1 1EW and polar collections Tel 0131 623 3700 Drawn from the Graham Brown collection, the Lloyd collection Email [email protected] and the Wordie collection, along with books received through Opening hours Monday- the Library’s legal deposit privilege, NLS’ mountaineering and Friday 9.30am-8.30pm polar collections are a fascinating resource taking the reader (except Wednesday to some of the world’s most remote regions. Current areas of 10am-8.30pm), Saturday special interest are Mont Blanc and Antarctica. 9.30am-1pm The General Reading Room

6 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk NEWS

ORDNANCE SURVEY Overlaying the past on the present

LS has just released a new website that allows large- N scale Ordnance Survey town plans (dating from 1847 to 1895) to be viewed in an impressive new way. The plans have been geo-referenced to form a seamless layer on top of Google and Virtual Earth satellite and maps. By switching layers off and on, the past can be directly compared to the present through a simple, intuitive interface. Concerns over sanitation and public health in the 1840s put pressure on Ordnance Survey to produce these maps of 61 Scottish towns at the most detailed scale in their entire history, (1:500 and 1:1,056 scale). At the 1:500 scale – adopted in 1855 and used ever since – any feature over six inches wide could be included. Consequently bollards, lamp-posts, pavements, garden paths, and even the positions of drying poles for hanging out washing are all shown. The maps display the divisions between buildings, as well as the wynds and vennels that are a regular feature of Scottish towns, rarely visible on smaller-scale maps. Many industrial premises are clearly depicted, sometimes showing their internal functions and manufacturing processes, along with harbours, docks, market places, canals, railways and tramways. You can even inspect ground-floor layouts of public buildings, such as cathedrals, churches, schools, poorhouses, prisons, and town halls. An eye on the past: users can switch from old town plans to today’s maps and aerial views Due to the importance of the plans

p s for improving urban sanitation, Scotland, but also a rich source of (1560-1950). The maps can be freely a features relating to gas, water supply, information on the history and viewed, and images and attractive sewerage and drainage are included, geography of all the larger populated large-format colour printouts can be such as fire plugs, hydrants, water places in the country. ordered upon request.

y of google m google of y taps, manholes and stop-cocks. The town plans form part of an The resulting plans are not only a online collection of over 8,000 high- View the town plan overlays at comprehensive snapshot of urban resolution images of maps of Scotland http://geo.nls.uk/maps s courte phy a

Just before we went to press there was a flooding incident in our George IV Bridge building. l photogr l STOP a We are pleased to report that the impact on the collections is relatively minimal, and that nearly all services

Aeri PRESS are back to normal. For more information and updates, please check our website www.nls.uk/news

www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 7 archive Remarkable records of printing firm go online new website has been set up A to promote and provide access to the Bartholomew Archive, a fascinating and extensive collection that documents nearly 180 years of map engraving, printing and publishing. The Archive records the production and management of the firm across several generations of Bartholomews from the 1820s to the 1980s. The conservation and cataloguing of the Printing Record (a copy of everything the Bartholomew firm printed between 1877 and 2002) has been in progress for some time. More than 50 volumes (covering 1877- 1913) have been conserved, with more than 20 (from 1877-95) now fully catalogued. The work will continue until 2010. With generous funding from the John R Murray Charitable Trust, the previous listing and arrangement of the business records has been completed, and a summary list of maps and plans compiled. The new website features descriptions of the family and firm, its background and significance, and highlights of selected publications.

This comic sketch of Scotland was uncovered in the Bartholomew collection

In particular, it describes the NLS is extremely grateful to the growing range of ways in which the Bartholomew family, particularly Mr Archive can be accessed, with links to Ivon Bartholomew, for organising inventories, summary lists, and substantial donations of further catalogues. New items will be added material to the Archive. in the months to come, including innovations such as digitally scanned View the new Bartholomew material and a regularly updated Archive website at An 1893 calendar from the Archive curators’ blog. www.nls.uk/bartholomew

8 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk news

nls ONLINE Improved searching coming soon egular users of the online R search facility at www.nls.uk will have noticed an exciting change in the last few months. On 19 December, the Library completed the first phase of an ongoing project to provide a ‘one- stop shop’ to search NLS’ collections, both physical and digital. ‘Once completed, this intuitive new search facility will allow you to find everything we hold from one central access point – be it books, magazines, maps, films or digital data,’ explains Gill Hamilton, Systems Librarian. ‘The new search engine allows you to refine searches by a number of criteria, including format, subject and NLS users will soon be able to search entire collections online geographical region. ‘It even provides you with a that when you click on a search result our collections – the whole process suggested list of alternative search that relates to the Scottish Screen will be far more straightforward.’ topics to aid your research. It’s hard Archive you will be taken straight Perhaps the biggest benefit of the to explain how it works but it’s very through to the appropriate place on new facility is that for the first time easy to use, so I would suggest readers the SSA website,’ adds Hamilton. complete collections will be simply try it out. ‘All of this means that in the near searchable with one click. ‘When the project is complete, the future, users won’t need to acquaint search engine will sit at the front of themselves with multiple search Try out the new search facility at all of our online database tools, so engines when trying to search across http://discover.nls.uk/

Three publications intended for hard times In these recession-hit times, tighten your belt with a few tips from these wartime guides in our collections

MAKE DO FOOD FROM WISE EATING IN AND MEND THE GARDEN WARTIME: FROM Prepared for the Ministry of THE MINISTRY OF Board of Trade by Agriculture and FOOD’S KITCHEN the Ministry of Fisheries. : FRONT Information. HMSO, 1941 BROADCASTS London: ‘Growing your own’ London: HMSO, HMSO, 1943 added to the war 1943 Most people have effort by lessening The popular BBC heard the phrase the need to import Kitchen Front radio ‘make do and mend’ but this wartime food, therefore freeing up ships to programmes featured Dr Charles Hill’s campaign largely failed, mainly load cargoes of weapons and other advice on making the most of scarce because the hints were so time- wartime essentials instead (as this ingredients, saving fuel, and wartime consuming. These included unpicking advertisement for fertiliser shows). dietary tips (including the wise words old clothes and using the fabric to This practical little booklet proved ‘make sure the bowels are well open’). make new ones, using crumpled very popular with patriotic Brits, newspaper to keep clothes in shape, selling 400,000 copies when it was See more wartime publications at and making bras from old knickers! first published. www.nls.uk/propaganda www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 9 CURATOR’S CHOICE Jings! How Pooh turned to Scots Andrew Martin, the National Library’s Curator of Modern Scottish Collections on James Robertson’s Scots translation of AA Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh Itchy Coo, Edinburgh, 2008

ch, jings, crivvens and help O ma boab!’ is a familiar enough cry – but haud on, this is not The Sunday Post’s Oor Wullie speaking, it is Winnie-the- Pooh. The bear has seen many incarnations over the years and now it is the turn of prize-winning novelist James Robertson, who has given Pooh a distinctive new Scots voice. On the face of it this seems a daft undertaking – how can the very epitome of an English nursery classic translate to Scots ? However, the answer is that it translates gey weel. Alan Alexander Milne (1882-1956) had family associations with Scotland – his paternal grandfather was a Scottish missionary in Jamaica – so perhaps this new version of his 1926 triumph is quite appropriate. Pooh remains as Pooh, but Piglet has become Wee Grumphie, Owl Andrew Martin is Hoolet, Eeyore is Heehaw, and with Robertson’s Kanga now has the Bairn Roo. Scots Pooh It is a real pleasure to see how one of our finest contemporary writers tackles themselves step muddy place’ but Robertson lets him the old favourite and the Scots perfectly into Scots. have ‘a gey glaury dub.’ It is a delight language fair sings oot. The charm While Eeyore and a surprise too to see how Wullie of the original remains but there is laments ‘Nobody cares’, ‘the auld Wastle, Katie Bairdie, and even definitely something extra added in grey cuddy’, Heehaw comes out with Auntie Mary, she of canary fame, slip the telling. Not only do we get a ‘Naebody gies a docken.’ Piglet may in perfectly and unobtrusively. couple of very bonnie passages of be ‘small and weak’ but Wee This is a great example of how the description – ‘It was a braw spring Grumphie is ‘shilpit and dwaiblie’. Scots language flourishes for children

morning… ’ – but the characters Similarly, Pooh rolls in ‘a very and adults alike. malcolm cochrane

Winning placement LS Corporate Information their course they send N Officer Graeme Hawley students out on placement. Award for (pictured) has won an award NLS took in four students, from Robert Gordon University in one of whom was assigned Aberdeen for providing the best to work with me. Information library school placement of 2008. ‘It worked because we ‘The university is one of only two were able to share ideas.’ Officer library schools in Scotland,’ says Hawley collects his Hawley, pictured right. ‘As part of award in March.

10 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk news

The Ten Commandments picked out with the blade of a pair of scissors

An historic map from NLS’ collections INternational NLS at India book fair he 33rd Kolkata Book Fair T took place in January and February. This year, Scotland was the official ‘guest country’ of the growing global event and a number of NLS staff gave talks at the special Scottish pavilion. Both Jan Usher, Head of Official Publications, and Kevin Halliwell, Curator of Commonwealth Collections, presented sessions on relevant Library collections, and on 5 February, NLS National Librarian and Chief Executive Martyn Wade gave a presentation on the theme of libraries in the 21st century. mystery The Kolkata Book Fair is the biggest event of its kind in Asia, attracting around 2.5 million visitors Help us decipher how this to the cultural capital of India. page was ‘cutt with scizars’

his intriguing document was The item was found in the 1950s T recently given to NLS by the when there was a clear-out of old Rev Melville F Schofield, a framed pictures from New College, by the numbers retired minister. All we know about it Edinburgh, and – in the recycling and is the information in the item itself, re-using spirit which was much more and its recent provenance. prevalent back then than in present The legend along the bottom times – Melville Schofield, then a mysteriously reads ‘Cutt with scizars student at the College, was given the by Thomas Hunter, Edinburgh, frames he wanted for use in building 5,000 Anno Dom MDCCLXXX’ (1780). a greenhouse. Behind one of these pamphlets in German and Latin The piece has been created with pictures he came across this printed between 1501 and 1530 within scissors – everything that looks like a manuscript, carefully folded. the Holy Roman Empire are held on pen-stroke is in fact a tiny incision. As for Thomas Hunter, we have no microfiche by the Library. You can What a labour of Christian devotion, idea who he was. If you can shed any find out more about NLS’ German to use this painstaking method to light on the man, or the manuscript, collections at: transcribe the Ten Commandments, we’d love to hear from you. Please http://tinyurl.com/7bpdtt the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. contact us at [email protected] www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 11 NEWS

Beautiful images such as this engraving from Thomson’s Atlas of Scotland are EVENT now available Film night at the Library Resource uring March NLS will be D hosting the first of what may New hub for images become a regular series of film nights, courtesy of the Library’s n 3 February Linda Fabiani, Commission on the Ancient and Scottish Screen Archive. MSP, former Minister for Historical Monuments of Scotland. ‘This will be a properly curated event,’ O Europe, External Affairs and The website makes selected images says Education and Outreach Officer Culture was at the launch of a new from these extensive and often Ruth Washbrook, who will be guiding resource that brings together archive unique holdings available for attendees through key moments in images from NLS, the National licensed reuse. Scotland’s history. ‘We are showing Archives of Scotland, National items taking in the early days of film- Museums Scotland, the National View the website at making and interesting events in Trust for Scotland and the Royal www.scotlandsimages.com Scotland’s history, such as the 1938 Empire Exhibition in Glasgow.’ Also on the bill is an early film from Laurel and Hardy. The event takes place at 7pm, on 12 March at NLS, George IV Bridge. AWARD PRide in Library’s success LS picked up accolades in knit unit has performed extremely N three categories at the well against objectives and budget prestigious Chartered alike,’ commented the judges. Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Discover NLS was named a silver PRide Awards for Scotland. award-winner in the ‘Best Newspaper The event, which took place at the or Magazine’ category, while end of 2008, saw the Library secure NLS Annual Review 2007-2008 the gold award for ‘Outstanding also landed silver in the ‘Best In-House Public Relations Team’. Publication’ category. ‘A comprehensive strategy being followed and measured by a close-

The winning team: Julian Stone, Alex Miller, Jo Arden, Karen Gallacher and Bruce Blacklaw Oliver Hardy will feature in film night

events & EXHIBITIONS A Literary Tour of Scots Scares A Home Away from Home: Scottish Theatre In partnership with Mary King’s Ghost the Experience of Scottish The exhibition examines Scottish Fest, Dr Fielding from the Emigration drama of the last 40 years. From University of Edinburgh’s Centre for The exhibition examines the experiences Scottish theatre’s early 70s ‘revival’, Scottish Writing in the Nineteenth of Scots who left their homeland in search spearheaded by the work of 7:84 Century will shed some light on of a new life abroad, and explores Scotland and other theatre companies, Scotland’s dark literary past. how new communities were forged to the recent successes of the National 12 May, 7pm at the National Library of overseas, while still retaining a strong , there’s a Scotland, George IV Bridge Scottish identity. fascinating story to be told. Booking essential. Call 0131 623 4675 26 June - 10 October at the National Opens December at the National or email [email protected] Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge

12 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk your guide NLS digital resources From articles on sport, to the full text of Parliamentary Papers from 1801, NLS’ licensed digital collections are a superb research tool

Art and literature ✱ Global Reference Solution from the annals of the 1850, consisting of over 12 A major database of global 18th century million pages ✱ 19th Century UK business information on over ➽ House of Commons ✱ Times Digital Archive Over Periodicals Part 1. Women’s, 80 million companies from Parliamentary Papers Full- one million pages from the Children’s, Humour and across the world text access to Parliamentary Times newspaper dating from Leisure/Sport Digitised full- ➽ Kompass Database of Papers from 1801 to 2000 between 1785 to 1985 text covering the advent of more than 23 million products ➽ Public Information Online ✱ Who’s Who (and Who Was commercial lifestyle and services of over 1.8 Full-text of recent Who) Contains the current publishing in Britain and the million companies Parliamentary Papers from Who’s Who plus the entire rapid rise of modern ➽ Market Research Monitor Westminster, Holyrood and Who Was Who archive dating magazine culture Market research reports for Stormont from 1897 ➽ Naxos Music Library more than 50 countries ✱ Making of Modern Law: A comprehensive collection ➽ Mintel Market research Legal Treatises 1800-1926 of classical music with over reports from the series on Digitised full-text of over Reference works 150,000 tracks from over Leisure, Market, Retail and 22,000 legal treatises on US and catalogues 7,000 composers Financial Intelligence and British law published from ➽ Oxford Music Online 1800 through 1926, consisting ✱ Credo Reference Full-text Full-text of major music of 10 million pages of critical of over one million entries reference works, including Education, legal history and 5,000 images in 100 the Grove Dictionary of Music science and high-quality reference and Musicians books from the world’s ➽ Perdita Manuscripts; social science History, biography leading publishers ➽ ✱ Women Writers, 1500-1700 ALPSP Learned Journals and genealogy Early American Imprints, Digitised manuscripts from Collection Over 700 journals Series 1: Evans, 1639-1800 early modern women authors from the Association of ➽ British and Irish Women’s Digitised full-text of over from Britain, ‘lost’ over time Learned and Professional Letters and Diaries The 39,000 titles printed in the since the 16th and 17th Society Publishers personal writings of women USA between 1639 and 1800 centuries ➽ Blackwell Compass from England, Scotland, ✱ Early English Books Online ➽ Scottish Women Poets of Journals Peer-reviewed Ireland, and Wales spanning 1475-1700 (EEBO) Digitised the Romantic Period Full text survey articles from across the last 400 years full-text of more than of over 60 volumes of lyric the disciplines of History, ➽ InfoTrac Custom 100,000 literary and poetry by 51 Scottish women Literature and Philosophy Newspapers Full-text of historical classics poets, written between 1789 ➽ Oxford Journals Online over 80 newspapers, ✱ Eighteenth Century and 1832 Full-text of over 180 journal featuring over 60 UK and Collections Online (ECCO) ➽ SCRAN Digital Materials titles including life sciences, Ireland titles, 30 Scottish Digitised full-text of over Over 336,500 images, films medicine, humanities and law titles and 20 titles from 150,000 books printed and sounds from museums, ➽ Science Full Text Select around the world between 1701 and 1800 galleries, archives and the Full-text database of over ✱ Oxford Dictionary of ➽ Oxford Reference Online media relevant to Scotland 300 titles from Wilson Web National Biography (ODNB) Full-text collection of over ➽ Web of Knowledge Accounts of the lives of over 100 dictionary, language Contains links to the Web 50,000 men and women who and subject reference Business of Science and Journal have shaped the history of works from the Oxford ➽ Factiva Global News and Citation Reports the British Isles and beyond University Press business search service ✱ Sabin Americana, covering over 14,000 leading 1500-1926 Digitised full- All collections can global publications Government text of works about the be accessed through ✱ Frost & Sullivan Interactive and official Americas published globally ✱ the electronic Research Resource Service from 1500 to the early 1900s resources search service at Detailed industry analysis on ➽ 18th Century Official ✱ Making of the Modern the Library. Collections chemical, energy, Parliamentary Publications World Digitised full-text of marked with a ✱ can also be environmental and building Portal 1688-1834 Over a over 61,000 works on accessed outwith the Library technologies, plus million pages of British Official economics and business (some require registration manufacturing worldwide Parliamentary Publications published from 1450 through for remote access).

For more information visit: www.nls.uk/catalogues/online/er/

www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 13 photography

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A view of the track at Palo Alto showing the banks of cameras triggered by wires as the horses moved through them

Frozen in motion There is a legend that Leland Stanford, railroad magnate, horse owner and Governor of California, bet $25,000 that at some point in its movement all four feet of a trotting horse left the ground. Robert Betteridge describes the extraordinary way in which that bet was settled

n the early 1870s debate raged to California, settling in San Francisco In 1872, using a high-speed shutter across America on the subject in 1855. A passionate man; he would and capturing just a silhouette against of so-called ‘unsupported transit’, later shoot dead but be acquitted white sheets, Muybridge was able to or the theory that all four of a of murdering his wife’s lover. Despite secure images of Stanford’s horse, horse’s hooves would leave the this bizarre diversion, he was still Occident, with all four feet off the Iground when travelling at speed. To able to pursue what was to be an ground. These original pictures do not settle the matter scientifically, railroad illustrious career. survive, but with this basic question magnate Leland Stanford hired English In the 1860s he took up the art of answered Muybridge continued to work émigré Eadweard Muybridge to photography, and by the end of the under Stanford’s patronage, developing photograph one of his horses in motion. decade had built a reputation as an his techniques and further investigating Born Edward James Muggeridge accomplished landscape photographer, the science of animal motion. in Kingston upon Thames in 1830, accepting several commissions from the At Stanford’s Palo Alto ranch, Muybridge followed the gold rush United States government. Muybridge captured images that would

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14 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk 1 Mr Bonifon and Mr Austin fencing. Models for most athletic subjects were from the University of Pennsylvania. Plate 349, Animal Locomotion. 2 These frames clearly show all four feet of the horse off the ground. Plate 625, Animal Locomotion. 3 A cockatiel in flight. The effect created is of the camera ‘following’ the bird. Plate 759, Animal Locomotion.

How Muybridge came to the Library The Minutes of the Curators of the Advocates Library from 10 June 1890 record that ‘The Keeper was authorised to purchase Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion’. Thus the Edinburgh-based Advocates Library became one of only 35 institutions worldwide to purchase a complete set of all 781 plates, considering them ‘a work of invaluable service’. These volumes, along with other non- legal collections of the Advocates Library, were gifted to the nation in 1925 to form the nucleus of NLS.

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appear in 1881 as the privately published movement simultaneously from several read on with nlS The Attitudes of Animals in Motion. angles. This work led to the publication shelfmarks denoted by ✒ However, Muybridge was soon to split of Animal Locomotion in 1887. The Attitudes of Animals in Motion with Stanford over the latter’s It is clear to see from these images why San Francisco: Privately printed, 1881. publication of The Horse in Motion, Muybridge was so highly regarded in his ✒ Dur.2508 which used drawings of Muybridge’s day – and why he is widely considered to Animal Locomotion photographs but failed to give him the have had a profound influence on the Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1887. credit he was due. evolution of cinema as we know it. ✒ X.213.1-11 Continuing his work, Muybridge Descriptive Zoopraxography gained the backing of the University of Find out more about NLS’ collections Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, where he was able to set of early photographic material at Pennsylvania, 1893. up a dedicated apparatus to capture http://tinyurl.com/abbrvu ✒ Bd.11 www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 15 SCOTBIS can help your business grow, whatever stage it’s at

The heart of the business SCOTBIS has something to offer everyone, from market research for small businesses to global contacts for growing firms. Head of Business Information John Coll explains

16 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk SCOTBIS

How to use Scotbis shows just how much SCOTBIS can help Register as a reader of NLS and use support business growth in Scotland. 1 SCOTBIS in person. For a small charge we can supply you with Business News photocopies or extracts from our Although many free sources of news databases. You can also look at our 5 are now available via the web, the content via the SCOTBIS website, or fact remains that many business news access resources directly using our GRS publications do not make their and Frost & Sullivan databases. information easily available. Newspapers often restrict use of their data, while trade Start-ups magazines rarely offer such content free. When setting up a company, a Given its importance, it is crucial that 2 business plan is crucial. It shows businesses have access to quality data you are a serious proposition and will help with international coverage. SCOTBIS can secure the necessary investment. tap into over 14,000 publications An important element of any plan is an worldwide, updated on a daily basis. These understanding of the marketplace and sources include not only traditional media SCOTBIS can help you achieve that. We such as newspapers and magazines, but hold the largest collection of market also blogs and videos to ensure users research data in Scotland with reports have access to all the breaking news. freely available to consult in the Library. We also provide a range of other sources Targeting for the initial start-up stage including Getting customers is the key to any examples of business plans. 6 business and SCOTBIS is used by many companies targeting potential A wider audience customers for their products or services. Keen as we are to support start-up For a small charge, we can provide you 3 businesses, we are also aware that with business mailing lists from a range of we serve a much wider audience. SCOTBIS databases containing information on over is used by a huge range of organisations two million UK companies or if you are in Scotland and throughout the world. looking further afield, 100 million We’ve been accessed by a student working companies worldwide. Lists can usually on an MBA, a charity seeking to identify be provided within 24 hours and will be potential donors, an unemployed person sent to you electronically. researching a company for a job interview – and even a resident of Nova Scotia trying Sourcing suppliers to trace details of a business their For some companies, the issue is not grandfather ran in Aberdeen at the turn of 7 one of customers but suppliers, and t a time of economic turmoil, the century. All of these reflect the rich obtaining the materials needed to develop getting the right business diversity of SCOTBIS users. products. SCOTBIS has access to a range information to help you of electronic and hard-copy sources that make decisions isn’t just SCOTBIS online will allow companies to identify and locate useful, it’s essential. The 4 Both SCOTBIS and NLS are the right suppliers. This information can AScottish Business Information Service, committed to giving users access be supplied electronically or by post, for a otherwise known as SCOTBIS, is based to information in a form that’s relevant small charge. at the National Library of Scotland and to them. With this in mind, SCOTBIS has been created to do just that. has now introduced direct access to SCOTBIS is here to assist you in finding We offer a range of services, all designed business content on the web. Last the business information you need, to help organisations and individuals track autumn, we launched Global Reference quickly. If you would like more information down the information they need to kick off Solution (GRS), a database providing on our service, or have any comments or a new project or to continue taking their information on over 100 million firms questions, please get in touch by business from strength to strength. The worldwide. This was followed by the telephone on 0131 225 8488, or send an service is used widely by start-up launch of Frost & Sullivan – a global email to [email protected]. hoto companies, but SCOTBIS has something

P market research database. Both are free to offer businesses at any stage of their to registered users, with NLS the only UK For more information tock

IS development. library to offer content in this way. This www.scotbis.com

www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 17 Scottish music has changed as it has passed down through the generations

Caledonia Almut Boehme tells Jude Rogers how a new exhibition uncovers Scottish music’s global influence from the calling Antipodes to the Americas folk music

raditional folk music has played an important part in the development of Scotland, and today the sounds of singing and playing still resound brightly across both the mainland and islands. But sometimes people fail to realise that Scottish folk music has also exerted a remarkable influence on T musical cultures in different lands. This spring, a new exhibition, Scots Music Abroad, sets out to tell the little known stories of Scottish folk music, in particular the ways in which it migrated from its homeland over many centuries. Almut Boehme, Head of Music at the National Library of Scotland, has brought together a fascinating collection of music, diaries, manuscripts and sound recordings from NLS and other library and archive collections, which not only reveal the pride these travellers had in the music that they sang, played and loved, but also their eagerness to share their heritage with others. The patterns of migration were not unusual. Many Scots travelled to colonial outposts with the army or navy, while others emigrated when the rise of the British Empire created employment opportunities in countries like Canada and Australia, or when goldrush fever took over the USA. Some were military musicians or the piano- playing wives of middle-class men entertaining visitors in parlours, but others were humble workers who entertained themselves with dances and songs. But when we look at the music that these people sang or played, we find a fascinating distinction between the Scottish folk tradition and those of other countries. ‘Scotland is very unusual,’ explains Boehme, ‘because it’s one of the few places in which folk music is performed by amateur and professional musicians of all classes. Folk music had always been valued highly at the Scottish court which led to a unique connection between traditional and classical music. There was no class issue.’ Musicians began to write down traditional music

Voyage diaries Alexander Turner left Scotland in July, 1883, for a new life in Australia. Here are some extracts from his diary, part of the NLS exhibition Scots Music Abroad: ‘Friday 20 July. We left the Quay at Glasgow… Monday 23 July… we have Dancing on Deck a ry

r and there is plenty of b

li music on Board… Friday t a r 3 August… the men had a We have all landed… one

n ma n concert to night [sic], it of the young men playing e

dg was very good… the fiddle to [locals]… ri b Tuesday 23 October… they were all dancing.’

Spring 2009 | discover nls | 19 folk music

in ‘classical’ notation which attracted the impromptu concerts that lightened up journeys. attention of music publishers in the 17th century. The diary of Alexander Turner, now held in From this time on Scottish traditional music the National Archives of Scotland, was sent to enjoyed both oral and written styles of the Australian High Commission in London transmission, quite in contrast to folk music from a donor in Australia (see page 19). It elsewhere. Even now, in the days of modern documents the story of a man travelling from recording technology, folk music is primarily Scotland to Queensland, Australia, on a boat passed down through the generations orally. This teeming with people. His journey began on 20 not only shows how keen are to July, 1883, and almost every day there are document their own heritage in a classical style, stories of singing and dancing on the ship. but how important folk music has been to all When the boat docks on Magnetic Island on classes and communities. 23 October, there is an account of the young With the increasing popularity of published men on board playing the fiddle to the people editions Scottish traditional music became more they meet. A strange signature at the end of readily available at home and abroad. the diary reveals how these stories may have The Scottish music publisher and collector come home to Scotland. George Thomson, in particular, was instrumental ‘The diary, very unusually, is signed by somebody in helping transport this music abroad, most other than the author after the last entry,’ says famously by commissioning foreign composers like Boehme. ‘This man is an Andrew Turner, who we Joseph Haydn to write instrumental The history discovered is likely to have been a relation of accompaniments to folk songs. of Scottish Alexander. It was practice at the time to make There were also continental composers working folk music copies of these diaries and send them home – to in Scotland like Francesco Geminiani, some of show, in great detail, what had been happening whom embraced Scottish traditional music. is so vast, during these journeys.’ Other composers were not influenced directly by that this This not only proves how keen the Scots were to Scottish folk music, but were instead inspired by the stay in touch with their families, but emphasises country’s romantic landscapes and literature, exhibition is how music was playing a part in their travels. particularly Ossian, Burns and Scott. One of the just a Another Australian diary, written by a well-to-do best examples of such music is Felix Mendelssohn glimpse into woman called Annabella Boswell, tells us how Bartholdy’s ‘Scottish Symphony’, completed more music was prized by those in other social circles. than a decade after he visited Scotland. As the the stories Like a character in a Jane Austen novel, she wrote romance of the country grew in the mind, it had a and sounds about her interests and pastimes. In the journal we pervasive effect on many people. of the can see in the exhibition, she writes about pipers, Scots were also keen to write down their stories fiddle music, songs about pilgrims, and her father about the way music was performed. One of the musical past encouraging her to learn what she calls ‘native most fascinating stories of this exhibition is that told songs’. She also describes the connections between in a voyage diary, recounting exuberant tales of the locals (whom she refers to as the ‘blacks’) and the new settlers. There is also clear evidence of Scottish folk music filtering through to Australian song. The most More music popular and yet still controversial example, says Boehme, is that of ‘Waltzing Matilda’, the song at the often regarded as the unofficial Australian national anthem. Its tune is partly based on a tune called Library ‘Thou Bonnie Woods of Craigilee’, which came to Australia through Scottish emigrants. Hu, Hei, Duncan Gray! Scottish folk music was also a strong cultural Scotland in the force in Canada, but this time with fiddle music Scandinavian musical from the Orkneys and the Highlands becoming imagination particularly popular in Quebec and Nova Scotia. A special lecture-recital In Canada’s Cape Breton Island, musicians exploring Scotland in the developed their own versions of traditional tunes Scandinavian musical like those found in James Scott Skinner’s Logie imagination. Collection. Cape Breton fiddle music is widely n 7 April, 7pm at the National accepted as one of the major styles of Scottish Library of Scotland, George IV to Thomson’s Select Collection of fiddle music. Bridge Original Scottish Airs. Moving south, the story of Scottish music is quite n 21 May, 7pm at the National different. While Scottish settlers brought their The Austrian Connection: Library of Scotland, George IV music to the United States the music had less Haydn’s Scottish Songs Bridge influence on the new country’s canon due to the Professor Marjorie Rycroft, diversity of immigrants arriving over the centuries. Professor of Music at Glasgow Booking is essential for both More recent suggestions of a link between African- University outlines the events. American gospel music and Gaelic psalm-singing contribution made by the Call 0131 623 4675 or email are very interesting, says Boehme, but require ‘inimitable and immortal Haydn’ [email protected] further research. As we reach the early 20th century, one particular

20 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk Harry Lauder The Library is rich with There are many more resources about the delights to be found in fascinating life of Harry the archive. We find Lauder (1870-1950), the Lauder’s personal entertainer from accounts of tours in Portobello, Edinburgh America and Europe, who took Scottish music sound recordings and around the world in the films in which he sings late 19th and early 20th his popular songs like centuries. They tell us ‘Nelly Broon’, and even a how his singing career newsreel of him, in his began in the mill and the later years, receiving pit, how he started 450 tons of food and singing professionally at clothing from the 24, and how his touring Scottish settlers in company rapidly grew in Boston, Massachussetts, stature both in Britain sent to help the country and beyond. recover after the Second In 1907, he made his first World War. trip to the USA, a Even after his official country to which he retirement from music in would return 22 times. 1935, Lauder made The NLS archive wireless broadcasts and includes primitive entertained wartime newsreel footage of one troops, showing his of these trips in 1913, commitment to his documenting ‘His country’s music, and his Triumphal Progress knowledge of how it from London to could raise spirits in dark Liverpool’ as crowds of times. He died in fans and pipers send him February 1950 at the age Harry Lauder off at the platform and of 79, but his musical in his famed at the quayside. legacy lingers. stage outfit

performer is covered extensively in the exhibition. popularise these traditions today. One would hope This man is Harry Lauder, an entertainer born in that he would be pleased that Scottish folk music Portobello, Edinburgh, in 1870, whom Winston still has a global reach, too. In the 21st century, Churchill generously described as ‘Scotland’s there are thousands of Scottish heritage groups in greatest ever ambassador’. continents as far-flung as Asia and Africa, as well as Dressed in and carrying a twisted hazel Folk music Celtic festivals in Canada and Australia that prize walking stick, he performed vaudeville and musical had always Scottish music. There are also regular events in versions of Scottish folk songs, and was so Scotland itself that draw international performers successful in the States that he had an American been valued and audiences, keeping the flag flying for the manager, and was even featured in a 1930 issue of highly at country’s rich heritage. Time magazine. In his later years, the development Boehme hopes the exhibition will serve people of recording and communications technologies the Scottish like Harry Lauder well, and that its resources will meant that Scottish folk music could travel all by court. There deepen our knowledge of the significance and itself, but Lauder is still remembered fondly by older was no class strength of Scottish music. ‘The history of Scottish generations for the way he tirelessly promoted the folk music is so vast that this exhibition is just a music of his homeland. issue glimpse into all the stories and sounds of the Today, Harry Lauder would see folk music in a musical past,’ she concludes. ‘As our research very different world. He would have noticed the folk continues, the story will get even richer.’ music revival of the 1960s introducing old songs to

Y young audiences at home and abroad, and the Scots Music Abroad runs from 6 March – 23 May at TT E

G wealth of young folk musicians who continue to the National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 21 geddes A man of all reason If you’d like to meet Patrick Geddes, just take a stroll around Edinburgh. Olive Geddes tells Malcolm Tait that there was more to the man behind the buildings than bricks and mortar

f Charles Darwin wrote to you and said: ‘I knows how to manage traffic levels, and where the have read several of your papers with very new supermarket should be built? To answer that great interest, and I have formed, if you will question, we have to turn to Mexico in 1879. permit me, a high opinion of your abilities’, Still only in his mid-20s, Geddes had been sent to then the chances are you would be an the central American country on a research mission. eminent biologist. If Albert Einstein said of He’d come a long way from Ballater, Aberdeenshire, you: ‘I have heard much praise from friends where he was born the son of a soldier in 1854 with concerning his work and personality. All who know no significant wealth or position. himI admire and honour him highly’, then you might He’d had papers published by the Royal Society, expect yourself to be a renowned scientist. and helped set up a zoological station at Stonehaven But what if Nobel prizewinning poet and mystic for Aberdeen University. He’d studied under TH Rabindranath Tagore stated that you had the Huxley, taken a course in botany, and written ‘power of an artist’, and historian Lewis Mumford notable papers on insectivorous plants. Now he was described you as ‘a philosopher whose knowledge tramping the world on behalf of the British and wisdom put him on the level of an Aristotle’? Association for the Advancement of Science. As Could you be just one person? Could you really Darwin’s testament shows, he was a biologist of warrant these apparently disconnected homages great promise, and a glittering future awaited. from such an array of luminaries? Then disaster struck. In Mexico, Geddes You could, if you were Patrick Geddes. In fact, on contracted an illness which made him blind. The the face of it, it seems strange today that such a condition was only temporary, but it left him polymath is principally known by modernity simply struggling to see properly through his microscope. as ‘the father of town planning’. How could His eyesight, so invaluable for a career in the Darwin, Einstein et al be such fans of a chap who biological sciences, had let him down.

City of enlightenment Edinburgh still bears the stamp of Geddes’ vision for a place where the surroundings could improve our lives

Ramsay Gardens Outlook Tower Riddles Court Lady Stair’s Close where Patrick Geddes also known as the partly renovated by bought by the Earl of developed revolutionary Camera Obscura, Geddes to provide self Rosebery for renovation ideas for both old Geddes used it as a tool governing housing for on the recommendation housing and new to spread his ideas university students of Patrick Geddes

22 | discover nls | Spring 2009 How could Darwin and Einstein be such fans of a chap who knows where the new supermarket should be built?

Spring 2009 | discover nls | 23 geddes

It’s the kind of moment that might halt many an Examples of Geddes’ work still abound in aspiring youth, but not Geddes. While recuperating Edinburgh (see page 22), but his enthusiasm for from the illness, he started to think about the forming the bridge between biology and social complex needs and relationships that biological science, between town and country, also took him organisms have for and with each other, and apply all over the world. As the 19th century drew to a them to mankind’s own impulses and requirements. close, the war between Turkey and Armenia was If a creature survives best in an environment most spilling refugees across the eastern Mediterranean suited to it, then surely so do humans. And as area. Shocked by their plight, Geddes spent a winter humans have more of an ability to shape their own in Cyprus helping some of them to resettle. environment than most of the rest of nature, then READ ON He encouraged them to develop agricultural shouldn’t we be doing so to bring maximum stimuli with NLS holdings, and build their own small industries, to both body and mind? Shelfmarks work that was to form the basis of a series of His own mind on full power, Geddes jotted all denoted by ✒ international exhibitions he would hold for the rest these thoughts down in a series of ‘thinking of his life on the importance of good planning. In machines’, diagrams that helped him record all the Papers of 1925 he drew up plans for the restructuring of the Sir Patrick Geddes connections beginning to join up in his thoughts. ✒ MSS.10501-10657 city of Tel Aviv. He set up a publishing house to get ‘This is a green world,’ he would later write, ‘with ✒ MSS.19253-19287 more of his thoughts into print. In Montpellier, animals comparatively few and small, and all ✒ MSS.19994-19999 France, he even founded a school – the Collège des dependent on the leaves. By leaves we live. Some ✒ MSS.21199-21205 Ecossais – to further this instruction. people have strange ideas that they live by money. Today, we think of anti-globalisation as a modern They think energy is generated by the circulation of Copies of Sir Patrick movement, a kickback against the growth of coins. Whereas the world is mainly a vast leaf Geddes’ Town multinational companies like Starbucks and Planning Reports colony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a McDonald’s, with voices like those of Michael ✒ Acc.12497 mere mineral mass: we live not by the jingling of our Moore and George Monbiot leading the charge. Yet coins, but by the fullness of our harvests.’ Copies of Charles Geddes was there first. The phrase Think Global, By the time Geddes left Mexico, and was back in Taylor’s letters home Act Local fitted his outlook perfectly. ‘Everything I Britain, he had started upon the all-consuming from the Collège des have done,’ he said towards the end of his life, ‘has passion that was to fuel the rest of his life. Olive Ecossais, Montpellier been biocentric; for and in terms of life; whereas all Geddes, who shares his surname by coincidence ✒ Acc.10495 the machinery of the state ignores life, when indeed alone, is a Senior Curator in the Manuscript it does not destroy it. The only thing that amazes Collections Division at the National Library of n The Geddes papers me, therefore, as I look back over my experiences is are available for that I was not caught and hung many years ago.’ Scotland, and oversees the Geddes collection. ‘He consultation in the was such an energetic man,’ she says, ‘always Manuscripts Reading Capital punishment was never really on the cards bursting with ideas for improving the human Room. For further of course, but Geddes’ work did have an effect on condition. Yet he wasn’t one to simply make information, email the establishment, so much so that aged 77 he was pronouncements from on high. [email protected] knighted. Mere weeks later, in 1932, the father of ‘He felt that to understand a community and how town planning died. it worked, one had to immerse oneself in it. The It never was about the ring roads and supermarket James Court area of Edinburgh was a slum in his placements at all. In Geddes’ hands, town planning day, and he moved in to find out what life was like. was really a way of saying that social structure In no time at all he was applying for permission from stems from the immediate environment. It’s all Edinburgh Town Council to improve conditions and about human ecology. had set up the Edinburgh Social Union.’ No wonder Darwin and Einstein liked him.

Discover the details behind the life and work of Geddes The National Library of n Photographs of scenes Scotland has a significant at the Collège des Ecossais collection of Patrick Geddes’ in Montpellier, papers. Much of the material France(pictured) was presented to the Library n Letters from Charles in 1960 by his daughter, Lady Taylor, a student at the Mears, but the collection’s college, including one from importance means that it the day the foundation stone continues to attract other was laid in 1928. It stated that related material. Geddes, whom the student thought should be happy, was n Examples of the ‘thinking faced with discontented machines’, or diagrams, that students unhappy about their Geddes used to formulate accommodation early thinking n Letters from luminaries nCopies of town planning such as Charles Darwin, John reports made during Geddes’ Ruskin , Sir Frank Mears and

time in India J Arthur Thompson SCOTLAND OF GALLERIES NATIONAL TOP,

24 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk MANUSCRIPT Restoring Scott to himself For more than 20 years NLS has been part of one of the greatest projects in Scottish (and indeed British) literary studies. Dr Iain Gordon Brown, Principal Manuscripts Curator at NLS, reports

he Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley and annotations in which Scott so lovingly Novels (EEWN) is a monumental and laboriously cocooned his text, in so doing scholarly undertaking designed to give the READ ON unconsciously making himself unreadable to world – for the first time – a fresh and WITH NLS subsequent generations interested in the stories Shelfmarks authoritative text of the novels as Walter denoted by ✒ rather than the author in his whimsical guises ScottT initially intended them to be read. It aims to and with his obsessional need to edit and re-edit recapture for today’s readers something of their Brown, Iain Gordon his own work. original magic: what Henry , on the (ed) Scott’s The Library has supported this remarkable publication of Waverley in 1814, memorably Interleaved scholarly undertaking, first by making available described as ‘an electric shock of delight’. Waverley Novels: an the world’s greatest collection of Scott manuscripts, The international team of editors, led by Introduction and correspondence and other papers, together with Commentary its own curatorial expertise, and then by negotiating Professor David Hewitt of the University of (Aberdeen 1987) Aberdeen, has returned to the first editions and ✒ H8.88.215 loans of Scott manuscripts from across the world beyond these to the successive (often heavily and ✒ Lit. S. 22 (including the United States and even Russia) as repeatedly revised) galley- and page-proofs and well as British public and private collections. These ultimately to the original manuscripts in order to Brown, Iain Gordon have been brought to Edinburgh for the use of the arrive at a text which is now presented free of all later ‘Collecting Scott for editors, and EEWN is due to be completed in the revisions, corruptions, misreadings. Scotland: 1850- summer of 2009. The new EEWN texts are shorn of the 2000’, The Book A vast number of errors crept into Scott’s novel Collector, 49, interminable prefaces, introductions, appendices no 4 (2000), texts between their rapid composition and their pp. 502-34 publication. Scott wrote extremely quickly, ✒ HP1.203.0667 completing texts in months or even weeks. On ✒ HJ3.1191 occasion he was still writing the later chapters of a book when the earlier part was being set in type. It Brown, Iain Gordon was left to his long-suffering printers to correct ‘Sir Walter Scott: a errors, add punctuation and tidy up the text. Life in Manuscripts’, Bulletin of the The level of intervention by others is surprising. Edinburgh Sir Walter Frequently Scott must have been unaware of quite Scott Club (2004), what had been done in his name. In order to preserve pp. 8-26. his anonymity, for reasons that appeared to be both ✒ P.la.10109 PER professional and commercial, Scott wrote all his fiction between Waverley in 1814 and his public admission of authorship in 1827, when further concealment was pointless, under a multi-coloured dream-cloak of disguise as ‘the Author of Waverley’ and other aliases. His actual authorship was known in his circle, and widely suspected outside it, but to preserve this not- very-secret secret his autograph manuscripts, formidably difficult to read by those unused to his hand, were transcribed and the novels typeset from that copy. Proof corrections by the author were themselves transcribed as often as successive authorial revisions made it necessary. So the texts often saw the light of printed day at many removes cotland

from the author’s mind and pen, peppered with very s

many non-authorial errors. of Work on the Edinburgh Edition has led to the correction of many thousands of textual variants and errors – extending from a single wrong character here and a word or sentence without accurate

Scott’s efforts to remain anonymous led to errors creeping into his texts meaning there, to matter omitted from or added to gallerie s national

26 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk 1

2

3

4

The tale of the missing pig One tiny, not desperately English accent and pelted with unfortunate ungulate, making, scott’s changing text significant but nevertheless snowballs: ‘salted with snow as if not quite nonsense of the new 1 From the manuscript of humorous example of the an English pig’, was what Scott phrase, then at least robbing it Redgauntlet, Adv. MS. 19.2.29, f.2 editorial process illustrates the originally wrote (though in the of its full meaning: ‘salted with 2 From Redgauntlet, published infinitely larger general point by manuscript he had in fact snow as a Southern -’. A in Tales and Romances of the reference to one small verbal spelled ‘pig’ with two Gs, an southern what? Author of Waverley, vol. II difference. It is an example I error silently corrected in the No printing of Redgauntlet (Edinburgh: Cadell 1827), p.262, first noticed and drew attention printing house). between 1832 and the Interleaved Set, MS.23027, to in print. The novel is When, in 1831, he came to Edinburgh Edition text that with alteration made to the Redgauntlet (1824), of which revise the text of Redgauntlet appeared in 1997 included that text by Scott the National Library of Scotland for the Magnum Opus edition, evasive three-letter word. 3 From Redgauntlet, published owns the autograph Scott must have realised that ‘Catching the greasy pig’ is in the Magnum Opus edition of manuscript. the word ‘English’ occurred in a traditional raucous village-fair the Waverley Novels, vol. XXXV Early in the book, the hero consecutive lines and decided sport. In editing Scott (Edinburgh: Cadell 1832), p.5 Darsie Latimer reminds his to alter the second use to read for our time it has become one 4 From Redgauntlet, edited by Edinburgh friend Alan Fairford ‘Southern’: a ‘Southern pig’. But pursued in the quiet of the G.A.M. Wood and David Hewitt, of how he had been bullied at in making the change, his pen National Library Manuscripts published in the Edinburgh the High School. In the first just touched the word ‘pig’. Division and its Reading Room. Edition of the Waverley Novels edition Scott made Latimer The compositor setting the new The missing hog is now (Edinburgh: Edinburgh speak of being mocked for his edition removed the restored. University Press 1997), p.2

texts which contradicts, confuses or was not used this along with the autograph manuscripts of otherwise what the author originally intended. works such as Waverley, The Heart of Mid-Lothian, In some cases, these errors go right back to the first Chronicles of the Canongate and Quentin Durward editions, where the original manuscripts had been Work on the (all of which are in the Library); surviving proof- misread or misinterpreted. Some of these errors can sheets for titles such as Ivanhoe or Count Robert of be traced to succeeding, already textually corrupt, Edinburgh ; and correspondence with publishers and editions or reprints. They then repeat themselves Edition has printers (also in the national collection). through all editions originating from Scott’s own The manuscripts have yielded hundreds of ‘definitive’ edition – the so-called Magnum Opus led to the readings never before printed. Equally, study of (of which publication began in 1829). correction the subsequent printed editions has shown a The great ‘Interleaved Set’ of the Waverley Novels, of many remarkable level of what has been called ‘textual one of the Library’s most important literary treasures degeneration’, the accumulated error of which (acquired in 1986), has been of fundamental thousands EEWN seeks to correct. importance in the study of the transmission of Scott’s of textual text and in establishing what has happened over the The Edinburgh Edition of the Waverley Novels years by way of ‘accident, error or variants is published by Edinburgh University Press, and misunderstanding’. The modern EEWN editors have and errors will be completed in the summer of 2009 www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 27 MY NLS

Nicholas Oddy

with his research, n o

much of which is ls gathered at NLS et wi an J Spot the design historian overlooked, in particular the ladies’ cycling manuals Nicholas Oddy, Senior Lecturer in Design History at by authors such as Fanny Erskine, who was probably Glasgow School of Art, sees the National Library of the first with Tricycling for Ladies in 1885. Not to Scotland as both a start and end point for his research mention Frances Willard, whose work is notable for its early photographic plates of her demonstrating ooking round the Reading Room at NLS, I bicycle riding techniques. Issues of gendering in cycle often speculate on what everyone is doing design are significant and I published on this topic there. The usual crop of postgraduate some years ago. I will be returning to it soon in the students is easy to spot, but what of those light of an interesting account of cycle use in the who are clearly not students? What arcane form of an 1893 diary held at the National Cycle formsL of research are they involved in and why? Archive at Warwick; no doubt sources like these will Do they look over to this balding bloke in the be summoned up again. disreputable tweed jacket and well-worn M&S I am currently working on the output of a Scottish V-neck and think to themselves ‘that one is a design manufacturer, Albert Barber, whose product ‘The historian interested in late 19th-century cycling’? Do Hampden’ was at the leading edge of fashion in 1895, they spot my grimy fingernails and conclude that I the high point of the bicycle boom. It is very useful to must be the owner of that old roadster outside? If have NLS holdings of key material such as The they do, they would be right. Scottish Cyclist so close to hand in work of this kind. The Library is a useful resource for me because it is Many readers of Discover NLS may be unaware on the doorstep. For someone who lives in Edinburgh of the fact there is a whole community of cycling and works in Glasgow, it is part of a substantial history, and that it is not only represented by the resource base, along with institutions such as the balding bloke with the tweed jacket. It even rises to Central, Mitchell and the university libraries, that an annual international conference. ensures I need not make regular visits to the British In a subject such as this no one library will have Library. Moreover, of the specialist areas I look at in complete holdings so for me NLS is usually the the British Library, many were subject to a bomb- starting point and, because it has such a pleasant NLS is blast in the 1940s that caused much destruction, and working environment so close to home, often the end part of a has resulted in some of the NLS holdings being point. In between there is a lot of traipsing about substantial superior to those of its London counterpart. archives and grovelling around dark lock-ups I have the Advocates Library to thank for this; looking at rusty old machines… but that is a resource they seem to have gathered up contemporary different story – and one not so conducive to the base material in the 1890s that might easily have been clean hands required of a visit to NLS.

28 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

Searching with success Start with a simple search Over the course of 2009, NLS will be ecause NLS has such a large implementing a new online tool that will archive, it is likely you will at make it even easier to track down information Bleast find something related to the subject you are researching. So it’s a and material held in the Library’s vast good idea to start with a relatively collections. However, a search engine is only simple search term, in order to get a feel as good as the terms entered into it. for what kind of material we hold. In many instances it’s better to start NLS Systems Librarian Gill Hamilton offers advice on with a subject as a search term than, effective online searching say, a title of a publication. For example, if you are interested in Know where to start Then of course there is the main NLS evolution and use that as a search term, his year we will be implementing website itself, at www.nls.uk/search. one of the items that may come up is our new search tool, meaning that Here you can search all the information the book The Blind Watchmaker by Tultimately you will be able to on our websites and many of our Richard Dawkins. However, if you search the entirety of NLS’ collections catalogues all at the same time. search for ‘blind watchmaker’ then, from one central search engine. NLS also subscribes to a number of along with Dawkins’ book, you will be Currently, however, if you are looking external online collections. You can presented with search results related to to find items from our physical find information about all of these at jewellery and Braille, which of course collections, one of the best places to www.nls.uk/catalogues/online/er/ are not relevant.

n start is the main catalogue index.html. NLS adheres to general library o ls http://tinyurl.com/989sza. It should be noted that some of the conventions on data. This means For films, a good place to begin is the external collections can only be material is described in neutral terms, et wi

an Scottish Screen Archive catalogue accessed from Library computers according to international standards. J at http://ssa.nls.uk. (see page 13 for details). This is quite different to material generally available on the Internet, and is an indicator that when you use one of our search engines, the information Search example ‘evolution’ retrieved is of high quality. From determining your search word to viewing the results Refining and ordering Determine your topic your searches 1 Be clear what it is you are nce you’ve got a sense for the trying to find. Here we will kind of information available, search on the word Oit can be very helpful to start ‘evolution’. This is a focusing in on specific areas of your starting point and subject matter. For example, when searches can always be using the main catalogue you can refined later to achieve confine your search to English more specific results language publications, or specific authors. This can often help you Scan your search results make more sense of information that 2 Typically, search results is being retrieved. Another good will be displayed in a idea is to sort your search results particular order. by date order, so that you can create Understanding what that a chronology. order is can aid the process of identifying which links Three final tips: are of most relevance to n Following links that appear in your your research search results can often help you get a fresh perspective on your subject. Viewing results n When librarians describe subjects 3 Accessing a web page they do so in the plural, so you should from a search engine search for them in the plural. For is akin to finding a page example, look for ‘theories’ rather in a book using its index - than ‘theory’. you need to take time n Remember, you can always contact to understand the NLS staff, in person, by telephone or information on the page by email ([email protected]) if you need in its wider context basic help tracking down information.

www.nls.uk Spring 2009 | discover nls | 29 LIBRARY LINKS

▼ THE MAN THAT BROKE What would you find if you THE BANK at monte carlo Still well known today, this song first searched for the word ‘Banking’ gained popularity in British music halls of the 19th century. It is believed to have been inspired by Joseph Hobson Jagger, in NLS’ extensive collections? an engineer from the West Yorkshire village of Shelf, who won a million ▼ A BALLAD ON MONEY pounds playing roulette in Monte Carlo Broadsides were the tabloids of their in July, 1875. time – large sheets of text, distributed on the street. The words to this morose broadside ballad were probably published between 1880 and 1890 and tell of the writer’s despairing belief that money ends up corrupting everything and everyone.

▲ ONE SCOTS This television documentary from the mid-1960s highlights the changing nature of modern banking in Scotland.

LOW RES

▲ A BRIGHT FUTURE IN BANKING A promotional film for a career in banking with the , follows the progress of men and women in the bank, from clerical to managerial levels.

FORGERS FOUND GUILTY A publication from 1824 tells us that William McTeague and Margaret McTeague were both found guilty of ‘uttering’ forged banknotes. After ‘a suitable admonition’, William was sentenced to execution on 19 May.

WANT TO discover more? Send your address details to [email protected] and we’ll mail you Discover NLS for free. Offer open to UK residents only.

30 | discover nls | Spring 2009 www.nls.uk