A decade ago, on 19 April 2016, my ‘book of the doctoral thesis’, appeared in the distinctive yellow and blue dustjacket of Brill’s Library of the Handpress World series as Charles Areskine’s Library: Lawyers and Their Books at the Dawn of the Scottish Enlightenment. I still really like the cover image which manages – just – to fit in the head of the little spaniel who seems to be waiting for its distracted human companions to notice it. You can see the entire painting of ‘Nicol Graham of Gartmore (1695 – 1775) and Two Friends Seated in a Library’ by Gawen Hamilton here. Although it isn’t Charles Areskine and his friends, the painting shows what an early eighteenth-century library was like: social as well as intellectual, a theme I explore in the book.
As I’ve written elsewhere on this blog, the book’s entry into the world wasn’t completely smooth: there were many rejections before the series editor Andrew Pettegree and Brill bravely took it on. I had no illusions about the book’s potential success: a volume about eighteenth-century Scottish lawyers and their books was never going to break any sales records, get me on a bestseller list, make me a household name, or be the basis of a bingeable television series.
But this is a celebration and a reflection about the book means to me now.
I’m proud of it.
There, I said it.
I’ve had some great feedback about Charles Areskine’s Library over the past decade. It received some positive printed reviews that praised its vision and innovative approach. (I’m still trying to forget the review that pointed each and every one of my typos! NEVER edit your own work….) People have told me that they’ve enjoyed reading it or found it be useful in their own studies. I’ve even had a comment about how good the index is, which is pleasing since I compiled it myself.
The book led to other opportunities. I was invited to go to Dublin to present about Charles Areskine’s library and that resulted in a related chapter about the Areskine/Erskine family libraries: ‘A family of readers in eighteenth-century Scotland: the Areskines of Alva and their books’ in Book Collecting in Ireland and Britain, 1650–1850 (Four Courts Press, 2018 – only four copies left at time of posting!). I got to expand on some of the book’s themes at a conference in Edinburgh and resulting chapter: ‘Humanist Books and Lawyers’ Libraries in Early Eighteenth Century Scotland: Charles Areskine of Alva’s Library’ in John W. Cairns and Paul J. du Plessis (eds), Reassessing Legal Humanism and its Claims: Petere Fontes?, Edinburgh Studies in Law (Edinburgh University Press, 2015). (I’m pleased to see that the legal humanism book will be coming out in a paperback edition in October 2026.)
The book has influenced my academic work ever since it was published. It’s no coincidence that one of ‘my’ libraries in the Books and Borrowing project was the Advocates Library!
I was also able to jump discipline to medicine as the project manager for ‘William Hunter’s Library: A Transcription of the Early Catalogues’.
I know that Charles Areskine’s Library (or at least chapters from it) sometimes features on reading lists since I can see it on my annual Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society statements. It is always a joy to see it cited in dissertations, chapters, and articles – even if the citation isn’t always positive. Then, at least, I know someone has taken the time to look at my work and thought it worth a mention.
My post-doctoral and post-book career has been anything but stable. But I’ve been able to be a part of many exciting projects involving library and book history and for that I’m grateful.
Thank you and happy birthday, Charles Areskine’s Library!
And thank you to everyone who helped to get it published and anyone who has read it and taken something of use from it.