The Great Affair is to Move: Travel and Topography at the Signet Library

The WS Society Annual exhibition 2021

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Room 2: As Others See Us: Foreign Travellers in Scotland

During the later part of the nineteenth century, the Society of Writers to the Signet began preparation for what would become the great 1890 History of the Society. One of the most significant sections in the 1890 History was the story of the Signet Library itself, and with that in mind the Librarian, Thomas Graves Law, began collecting accounts of travels within Scotland in languages other than English. Some of these would record the impact of the Library on visitors to Edinburgh from France, Germany and other nations. But Law’s collecting extended far beyond that narrow focus of interest, and it is largely thanks to him that the Signet Library today holds a collection of foreign accounts of travel in Scotland of extraordinary depth and richness, with many items the only copies available in the United Kingdom. The selections here represent the different periods and approaches to be found in this collection, and can account for only a very small proportion of a collection probably worthy of an exhibition unto itself.

Les Delices de la Grand Bretagne: the uk in the first year of the union

Les Delices de la Grand Bretagne & L’Irlande [Leiden: Pieter van der Aa 1707]

[Title Page]; Bass Rock; Lighthouse, Plymouth; Magdalen College, Oxford; St James’s Park, London.

An eight volume work published in 1707 by Pieter van der Aa, this set of travel books achieved popularity thanks to the beautiful engravings by Jan Goeree. Pieter van der Aa was a highly successful mapmaker, with a pioneering style, whose work still commands high prices. ‘James Beeverel’ is most likely a fictitious construct of the publisher.

Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond: A French politician in the hebrides

Voyage En Angleterre, En Écosse Et Aux Îles Hébrides: Ayant Pour Objet Les Sciences, les Arts, l'Histoire naturelle et les Moeurs : Avec La Description minéralogique du pays de Newcastle, des montagnes du Derbyshire, des environs d'Édinburgh, de Glasgow, de Perth, de S.-Andrews, du duché d'Inverary et de la grotte de Fingal. 2 Volumes. Paris: Chez H J Jansen, Imprimeur, Libraire, Rue des Saints-Pères, No. 1195, F.S.G. 1797

Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741 – 1819): Geologist and President of the Seneschal’s court in Montélimar

Born in Montélimar, Barthélemy studied law at Grenoble, being admitted as an advocate to the Parlement and later President of the Seneschal’s court in Montélimar He left the profession in order to study geology. Successful research into valuable mineral deposits and volcanology led to an appointment as Royal Commissioner for Mines. In 1784 he spent a year touring Scotland, England and the Inner Hebrides in order to identify volcanic minerals and was the first person to study Staffa and Fingal’s Cave from this perspective. Barthélemy was later appointed the first Professor of Geology at the Jardin des Plantes in 1793.

Louis Énault’s voyage pittoresque, 1859

Angleterre, Écosse, Irlande, Voyage Pittoresque (Paris: Morizot, Bookseller-editor, 1859)

Louis Énault (1824 -1900), French writer of arts, history and travel books.

Louis Enault originally trained as a lawyer in Paris and was arrested after the French Revolution of 1848 (he was a Legitimist sympathiser). In 1876 he collaborated with Gustav Doré to produce an illustrated work on the industrial revolution in London with over 170 woodcuts.

The image of Liverpool docks recalls a time in which people were buying tickets to America, Australia and New Zealand in search of better prospects.

Parisian engravings of scottish victorian photographs

L’Ecosse, Souvenirs et Impressions de Voyages. Paris: Librairie Hachette et Cie, 1898

Marie Anne de Bovet (1855 - ?), French writer and journalist; Gaston Vuillier (1845 – 1915), French painter, traveller and ethnographer

This guide to Scotland was written at the start of Bovet’s career, before becoming a successful journalist, writing many outspoken articles from a feminist perspective. At the time of the Dreyfus Affair, she wrote for La Libre Parole, a strongly anti-Semitic newspaper. She travelled widely and was honoured with The Louise Bourbonnaud Prize (awarded annually to French explorers).

This view of the Forth Bridge by Gaston Vuillier is an engraving taken from a photograph by James Valentine and the inclusion of a paddle steamer is a lovely nod to Scottish travel culture.