These vibrant illustrations of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ and angels come from an Ethiopian psalter purchased for Special Collections last summer. Ethiopia is one of the oldest Christian countries, having been…
This week’s inspiring illustrations are selected from the beautifully crafted presentation addresses from institutions and learned bodies world-wide which were sent to the University of St Andrews in 1911 to…
Cataloguing work on the papers of Principal Sir James Irvine, donated by Irvine’s granddaughter, Julia Melvin, has revealed an interesting story surrounding Irvine’s cloak and dagger quest to become the next Principal…
This small sketchbook of around 100 watercolour sketches of St Andrews scenes represents just a tiny fraction of the artistic output of its creator, John Nicol Bonthron. He is thought to have produced around 10,000…
These beautiful hand-painted pictures of tortoises and turtles were created by Scottish naturalist John Anderson (1833-1900). They feature reptiles found in India, Ceylon and Burma, including the Indian star tortoise,…
Worms and bugs of beauty! This week we have chosen to feature a little album from one of our family collections. Compiled by Roberta Mitchell McIntosh (or M’Intosh) in the 1860s, this is a maroon leather-bound album of…
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, the renowned Scottish abstract artist, has been attracting a lot of attention this year, with several recent events to celebrate the centenary of her birth. She was born here in St Andrews on 8…
Regular users of Special Collections will know that over the last 5 years or so we have been promising that our new Archive Catalogue was in preparation and would be online ‘soon’. That ‘soon’ wasn’t quite as soon as…
We couldn’t resist celebrating St Andrews day with some ‘inspiring illustrations’ of our eponym himself. The cult of St Andrew was actively pursued in Scotland by the 12th century: it was in the interests of the 12th…
The Friends of the Library are delighted that Emeritus Professor Douglas Dunn will be delivering their Autumn Lecture on Thursday, November 22 at 5.15pm in the Arts Lecture Theatre. His topic, “The Writer in the…