The Abbotsford Library Research Project

Scottish Literature at Glasgow plays an important part in research into the library of Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford near Melrose, overseen by the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh.  The library of more than 15,000 volumes and manuscripts, many of them rare, is one of the greatest writers' libraries in the world.

Emeritus Professor Douglas Gifford (Scottish Literature) has been Honorary Librarian at Abbotsford since 1995, and Professor Gerard Carruthers (Scottish Literature) is the University of Glasgow representative on the Joint Abbotsford Advisory Committee, having served in this role since 2003.  In recent years Dr Kirsteen McCue (Scottish Literature) and Professor Nigel Leask and Emeritus Professor Andrew Hook (both English Literature) have served in an advisory capacity to projects at Abbotsford.  Working with colleagues from the Faculty of Advocates, the National Library of Scotland and the universities of Aberdeen and Edinburgh, research into both the career of Walter Scott and the significance of history of his collections more generally have been proceeding for a decade and a half.  Some of the key research outputs are as follows:

A new searchable catalogue for the library has been completed by Lindsay Levy of the Faculty of Advocates, in part funded by a grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities in Scotland for which the University of Glasgow was co-investigator.  Lindsay  is undertaking a PhD into Scott's library supervised in Scottish Literature at Glasgow.

Stock-checks and initial research in Scott's large collection of Chapbooks led by Professor Gifford and involving other staff and postgraduates from Glasgow.

Gerard Carruthers (Glasgow) and Professor Alison Lunsden (Aberdeen) [eds], Reliquiae Trotcosienses (Edinburgh University Press, 2004).  The first full edition of Scott's semi-fictional guide to his library and meditations on antiquarianism.

Gerard Carruthers and Alison Lumsden (eds), Sylva Abbotsfordienses (2007).  An online version of Scott's notebook for setting out his grounds in Abbotsford house. 

‌The Fornicators Court (Faculty of Advocates, 2009), introduced by Gerard Carruthers and Dr Pauline Mackay (Centre for Robert Burns Studies, University of Glasgow).  A facsimile edition of a rare Robert Burns book owned by Scott.

Research into the marginal annotations made by Scott in his books compiled by Dr Megan Coyer (Centre for Medical Humanities) funded by a grant from the Chancellor's Fund of the University of Glasgow.

Recently Dr Rhona Brown (Scottish Literature, Glasgow) has been completing an edition of James Beattie's lost poem, 'The Grotesquiad' which was rediscovered at Abbotsford.)

For further information on Abbotsford, see: http://www.scottsabbotsford.co.uk/visiting-abbotsford/the-house/the-library