Bookish Banter

On the 23rd April many countries around the world will be celebrating World Book Day (something that the UK has done in recent years a month earlier). This date was originally chosen to coincide with the date of William Shakespeare's death, probably the most famous wordsmith in history. In honour of Sir Walter's lifelong admiration for the Bard, I thought bookish banter should be the order of the day!

Over the past week or so we have been beavering away, armed with our trusty gloves, archival tape and camera, condition-assessing the books on display in our free to access exhibition in the Abbotsford Visitor Centre. Walter Scott's library at Abbotsford is a rare thing indeed, and not just because Sir Walter thought it the 'handsomest room in Scotland'! Most personal libraries of writers, statesmen and academics end up dispersed or at the very least, depleted after the death of the original owner as items are discarded or claimed by various living relations. Particularly significant collections may be absorbed in their entirety into larger museum or institutional collections. The fact that Scott's library remains wholly intact and that the volumes sit on their shelves in the very position they occupied during the author's life, is remarkable, and one of the many reasons that we now treat the collection as a conservation library. Direct access to the books, even for researchers, is something strictly governed to ensure their long-term survival.  For this reason, one of the most rewarding parts of  my work is selecting a handful of these books for public display, offering visitors a rare glimpse inside the front covers. In the last changeover alone we added an edition of Tam o' Shanter annotated in Robert Burns' own hand, a manuscript revealing Scott's first attempts at copying Icelandic sagas and one of the world's first historical novels, Guerras civiles de Granada. 

Scott's 1791 edition of Tam o' Shanter

Now, it would of course be a travesty for the literary property of a lifelong bookworm such as Scott not to form a significant part of the exhibition on his life and work. However, from the standpoint of a Heritage team, paper is one of our more high-maintenance friends! Every January we have a complete changeover of all the books displayed in the Visitor Centre and then every three months, all those books have to be assessed to see how they are coping with display, with very few books permitted to remain on display for more than six months at a time. On the face of it, this may seem nonsensical. How could a book visibly change in a matter of months whilst locked away in a case?! You'd be surprised.   

Scott's personal bindings displaying his portcullis symbol and motto: Clausus Tutus Ero (roughly translates to 'Closed in I am safe), quite appropriate for the contents of a conservation library! 

When shelved, the books at Abbotsford are kept in an stable, environmentally controlled setting, packed fairly tightly with a gap at the back to ensure adequate air flow. Some of the books owned by Scott are contemporary with his life and writings but others were antiquarian treasures even by his standards. For books, the display process is all about finding the right angle for pitch and opening that puts the least strain on the binding. Sometimes, fascinating books we would love to display simply don't make the cut because they're too fragile. Others need to be carefully monitored to ensure they don't start to warp or gape when you attempt to close them and this is what we've been checking and photographing over the last few days for those books currently on open display. Pages also need to be turned to try and mitigate the damaging effects of UV light. For those books that are already showing any signs of structural deterioration at this three months check, it is the end of the road for their display and replacements on a similar theme must be sought. And thus the cycle continues.... but we wouldn't have it any other way!

The visual warning signs that a volume is not suited to prolonged display - Scott's copy of Halidon Hill.

The moral of the story is this: if you are a particular fan of an exhibition or museum that displays rare books, make sure you return every few months because you're always likely to see something new. For Abbotsford this time will come in the summer, so why not come and see our latest discoveries for yourself? 

Thanks for reading!

Kirsty Archer-Thompson
Heritage and Engagement Manager    

   

Welcome to our Blog!

Welcome to our Blog!

Hello and a very warm welcome to our very first blog post on behalf of the Abbotsford Heritage and Engagement team! Here at Sir Walter Scott's 'Conundrum Castle', quite literally stuffed to the rafters with antiquarian treasures, we thought it was high time that we shared some of the more quirky and unusual things that we intrepid souls in the Curatorial Department experience on a daily basis. Over the coming weeks and months we will try and shed some more light on particular objects in the collection, discuss potential research projects and interesting unanswered questions and share amusing anecdotes of the weird and wonderful things we end up turning our hands to. Now, as is so often the case with museums and charitable institutions, we are a busy team of two and will be seeking funding and voluntary support to allow us to really develop this blog to act as a tool for anyone who is curious (or indeed serious) about Scott to get something really meaningful from following us. In the meantime, we will try and share as much as we can.

The digital reconstruction of Robert the Bruce's tomb 

Abbotsford has been open to the public following a major restoration project for almost two years now, so you might be wondering 'why start a blog now?' Well, this week seems like a particularly good time to start sharing our stories as we celebrate the opening of our new 2015 exhibition: 'The Lost Tomb of Robert the Bruce.' This exhibition is the fruit of our first collaborative project with a number of other Scottish heritage bodies, making sharing new ideas and research something that is right at the forefront of our minds. Now, of course, it is our aim that readers will come to the house and see the display for themselves so don't expect to read too many exhibition spoilers here! What I do want to discuss is why I think Scott would have been pleased as punch to have the remaining fragments of the Bruce's tomb here in his beloved home, particularly as so many of the other fragments are far more ornate that the one he managed to acquire!

The remaining medieval marble fragments found when work was beginning on building the new parish kirk at Dunfermline in 1818 

Scott and the Bruce

Now, considering his penchant for augmenting history with myth, particularly with regard to reimagining the past of his native Scotland, it will come and no surprise that King Robert I fascinated Scott. 2015 is actually the bicentenary of The Lord of the Isles, one of his final poetical works and one that focuses on the exploits of the exiled Bruce in the seven years leading up to the famous victory at Bannockburn. Not only do we now know that he managed to acquire a piece of the Bruce's impressive marble tomb long since destroyed, but he also proudly displayed a cast of the monarch's skull here at Abbotsford. We know that the original cast of the skull was made by the sculptor, William Scoular, following the exhumation of what was believed to be the King's remains in 1818 whilst building work was going on at Dunfermline Abbey. This cast is now kept in the Anatomy Department of the University of Edinburgh and we know that further casts were taken from this original, one of which proved irresistible to the magpie eye of Sir Walter Scott.

Scott's Cast of the Bruce's Skull

Another rather fun fact is that Scott also seems to have had a hand in bringing that famous scene of the industrious spider inspiring the downtrodden king into the popular consciousness, along with the sentiment of the popular expression 'if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.' The spider story appears in Tales of a Grandfather,written primarily for his beloved six year-old grandson, John Hugh Lockhart and published in 1828:

    "Bruce, seeing the success of the spider, resolved to try his own fortune; and as he had never before gained a victory, so he never afterwards sustained any considerable check or defeat. I have often met with people of the name Bruce, so completely persuaded of the truth of this story, that they would not on any account kill a spider; because it was that insect which had shown the example of perseverance, and given a signal of good luck, to their great namesake." 

Although this was the first time this parable of perseverance had entered the public sphere in any major way, the first reference to this small arachnid catalysing events in Scotland's history is buried in an account by David Hume of the exploits of the 'Black' Douglas, Bruce's ally. Now it turns out that Scott has a 1644 edition of this particular book in his library here at Abbotsford: The history of the house and race of Douglas and Angus written by Mr. David Hume of Godscroft , along with a host of other antiquarian historical books on the subject, so we can be pretty sure of where his inspiration for the moral lesson came from! 

Throughout Scott's writings you get the sense that he was captivated by the romanticised outlaws of the past and he collected items connected with them, sometimes very spuriously, as if they were magical amulets or totems. As Scotland's most famous warrior king, the tomb fragment is one of the most powerful example of this activity in relation to a monarch and I am positive that the great man himself would be thrilled to see the remaining fragments on public display together; sadly all that now remains of a once grand medieval monument to rival the French tombs of old. 

You can visit 'The Lost Tomb of Robert the Bruce' free of charge with a house admission ticket until November 30th 2015.  To find out more about visiting us, click here.

Thanks for reading!

Kirsty Archer-Thompson 
Heritage and Engagement Manager