Edinburgensia: A collection of over 60 17th-19th century items in one volume

speccoll

Friday 3 June 2011

Bound-with volumes, or analytical volumes, are often the bane of a cataloguer’s existence and are sometimes the last items to come off of a shelf for work. Stories have been circulated about bound-with volumes of 200-300 musical items that have taken months to catalogue. However, these pesky items can also be a gold mine of unrecorded bibliographic items, simply because no one has had the time or patience to work with them. TypBE.C89XS is such an item. This unsuspecting, slim volume’s only clue to what lay inside its covers was its spine title: Edinburgensia. This volume contained 63 individual items, including four manuscript items, that reflect a 200 year ephemeral history of Auld Reekie. Of the 59 printed items, 14 are completely unique and had not been recorded in ESTC previously (pictured below). These items range from broadsides and political pamphlets to issues of short-run newspapers and press-gang exemption forms. This volume was probably gathered by Sir William John Menzies (1834–1905), whose signature is found on the later items in the volume.

–Daryl Green