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Reading the Scottish Enlightenment
Books and their Readers in Provincial Scotland, 1750-1820
Series: - Library of the Written Word, Volume: 10
- Library of the Written Word - The Handpress World, Volume: 10
Author:
It has become commonplace in recent decades for scholars to identify in the books of the Scottish Enlightenment the intellectual origins of the modern world, but little attention has yet been paid to its impact on contemporary readers. Drawing on a range of innovatory methodologies associated with the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of the history of reading, this book explores the reception of books by David Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson and Thomas Reid (amongst many others), assessing their impact on the lives, beliefs and habits of mind of readers across the social scale. In the process, the book offers a fascinating new perspective on the fundamental importance of personal reading experiences to the social history of the Enlightenment.
Mark R. M. Towsey, Ph.D. in History (St Andrews, 2007), is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Liverpool. He has previously held fellowships at Harvard, Yale and London, and has published extensively on eighteenth-century libraries and reading habits.
Shortlisted for the Saltire Society's 2011 Scottish History Book of the Year Award
â[This] book is a triumph. Towseyâs primary research is both impressively detailed and extraordinarily wide-ranging, even by the high standards of studies in this field generally.â
Matthew Bradley, Pembroke College, Oxford. In: Library & Information History, Vol. 27, No. 3 (September 2011), pp. 199-200.
"Towsey pays particular attention to letters, diaries, marginalia and commonplace books. On all these matters he is a splendid mine of well-structured information [...]. In this exhaustively researched book Towsey provides a most persuasive argument for the claim that the works of the literati reached deep into Scottish society, not only in the university towns but across Scotland more generally, and that the books of the literati were not just accessible, but accessed and interpreted."
Alexander Broadie, University of Glasgow. In: The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 2 (2012), pp. 365-367.
"This book gets to the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment ... [Towsey] convincingly sets out his methodologies, provides detailed evidence to support them, and develops and provides new insights into our knowledge and understanding of the social impact of the Scottish Enlightenment in provincial Scotland."
Heather Holmes, Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society.
"The story Towsey tells here is intellectually compelling, even moving."
Stephen W. Brown, Trent University, Ontario. In: The Library, 7.13.3 (September 2012). pp. 347-349.
â[This] book is a triumph. Towseyâs primary research is both impressively detailed and extraordinarily wide-ranging, even by the high standards of studies in this field generally.â
Matthew Bradley, Pembroke College, Oxford. In: Library & Information History, Vol. 27, No. 3 (September 2011), pp. 199-200.
"Towsey pays particular attention to letters, diaries, marginalia and commonplace books. On all these matters he is a splendid mine of well-structured information [...]. In this exhaustively researched book Towsey provides a most persuasive argument for the claim that the works of the literati reached deep into Scottish society, not only in the university towns but across Scotland more generally, and that the books of the literati were not just accessible, but accessed and interpreted."
Alexander Broadie, University of Glasgow. In: The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 91, No. 2 (2012), pp. 365-367.
"This book gets to the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment ... [Towsey] convincingly sets out his methodologies, provides detailed evidence to support them, and develops and provides new insights into our knowledge and understanding of the social impact of the Scottish Enlightenment in provincial Scotland."
Heather Holmes, Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society.
"The story Towsey tells here is intellectually compelling, even moving."
Stephen W. Brown, Trent University, Ontario. In: The Library, 7.13.3 (September 2012). pp. 347-349.
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction âEnlightenment Everywhereâ: Locating the Reader in the Scottish Enlightenment 1
PART I: ENCOUNTERING ENLIGHTENMENT
Chapter One âOne of the Greatest Ornaments to a Gentlemanâ: Private Libraries
Chapter Two âA Powerful Means of Improving the Neighbourhoodâ: Subscription Libraries
Chapter Three âVice and Obscenity Dreadfully Propagatedâ: Circulating Libraries
Chapter Four âA Taste for Reading in the Countryâ: Religious and Endowed Libraries
PART II: EXPERIENCING ENLIGHTENMENT
Chapter Five âThis Map of my Mindâ: Recovering Historical Reading Experiences
Chapter Six âA Man of Moderate Passionsâ: Fashioning an Enlightened Self
Chapter Seven âThat Independency which a Whole Nation had Renouncedâ: Negotiating Scottish Identity
Chapter Eight âThe Patron of Infidelityâ: Reading Hume and the Common Sense Philosophers
Conclusion âImproved and Enlightened by Readingâ: A Provincial Enlightenment?
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
Introduction âEnlightenment Everywhereâ: Locating the Reader in the Scottish Enlightenment 1
PART I: ENCOUNTERING ENLIGHTENMENT
Chapter One âOne of the Greatest Ornaments to a Gentlemanâ: Private Libraries
Chapter Two âA Powerful Means of Improving the Neighbourhoodâ: Subscription Libraries
Chapter Three âVice and Obscenity Dreadfully Propagatedâ: Circulating Libraries
Chapter Four âA Taste for Reading in the Countryâ: Religious and Endowed Libraries
PART II: EXPERIENCING ENLIGHTENMENT
Chapter Five âThis Map of my Mindâ: Recovering Historical Reading Experiences
Chapter Six âA Man of Moderate Passionsâ: Fashioning an Enlightened Self
Chapter Seven âThat Independency which a Whole Nation had Renouncedâ: Negotiating Scottish Identity
Chapter Eight âThe Patron of Infidelityâ: Reading Hume and the Common Sense Philosophers
Conclusion âImproved and Enlightened by Readingâ: A Provincial Enlightenment?
Bibliography
Index
All those interested in the social history of ideas, the Scottish Enlightenment and the cultural history of eighteenth-century Britain, as well as book history, library history and the history of reading.