The Signet Library 200th Anniversary Online Exhibition
Signet Library Collection Guides
Session Papers: A Guide to Further Reading
Sketch of a sitting judge from Lord Eldin’s Session Papers (SP 330:5 of 1816)
technical background to session Papers
Stewart, Angus. “The Session Papers in the Advocates Library.” Stair Society Miscellany IV Edinburgh Stair Society 2002 p.199
Campbell, Kenneth. 'The Session Papers in Four Early Cases of Damages for Personal Injuries' - Kenneth Campbell Stair Society Miscellany IV Edinburgh Stair Society 2002 p.225
session papers at work
For an extended example of the range of writers and works that might be brought to bear in written Session Paper pleadings, see:
Baston, Karen Grudzien The library of Charles Areskine (1680-1763): Scottish lawyers and book collecting, 1700-1760. Phd, University of Edinburgh 2011 pp. 117-118 and
Baston, Karen “A family of readers in eighteenth century Scotland: the Aerskines of Alva and their books” in Boran, Elizabethanne (ed). Book Collecting in Ireland and Britain 1650-1850 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2018) p. 195
James Boswell’s Session Papers
Milne, Hugh. The legal papers of James Boswell. Vols I & II, Edinburgh: The Stair Society 2013 & 2016
tales from the session papers
A series of articles by Dr. Kit Baston illustrating the sheer range of subject and material available to researchers and writers through the Scottish Session Papers:
Phebe Forbes’s Country Life, Part 1: A Young Widow’s Legal Battle
Phebe Forbes’s Country Life, Part 2: When Cows Attack
Henry Raeburn versus the Stockbridge Steam Engine
Hisses, Uproar, and Confusion: Mr James Fennell’s Riotous Nights at the Theatre Royal, 1788
More Uproar: How the Caledonian Mercury Reported Mr Fennell’s Edinburgh Adventure in July 1788
The Flowers of Potter-row: A tale from the Session Papers