Bob MacLean

I Murder Hate Robert Burns I murder hate by flood or field, Tho’ glory’s name may screen us; In wars at home I’ll spend my blood— Life-giving wars of Venus. The deities that I adore Are social Peace and Plenty; I’m better pleas’d to make one more, Than be the death of twenty. I would not die like Socrates, For all the fuss of Plato; Nor would I with Leonidas, Nor yet would I with Cato: The zealots of the Church and State Shall ne’er my mortal foes be; But let me have bold Zimri’s fate, Within the arms of Cozbi!

In 1787, Robert Burns acquired a diamond-tipped pen which he used to inscribe poems on windows & chimney-pieces across Scotland. “I Murder Hate” is Burns’s version of “make love, not war” #graffiti, & was etched into a window at the Globe Tavern, Dumfries
#WyrdWednesday #C18 #poem #poetry

Something nasty on the bookshelf: my review of @tanyakirk.bsky.social's collection of stories about books and libraries for @blpublishing.bsky.social, ‘The Haunted Library’ drfrancisyoung.com/2026/03/04/s... 📚👻

Galileo’s handwritten notes found in ancient astronomy text Discovery sheds new light on how famed astronomer came to lead a scientific revolution

www.science.org/content/arti...

Calling all #UofG students! There is less than 1 week to apply for the David Murray Book Collecting Prize!

£500 will be awarded to the student with the best collection of books or printed materials 📘📕📙

To find out more and apply, go to www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/li....

Detail of an early modern engraving with the corner left unprinted because seemingly a paper slip was between the plate and the paper sheet, as the unprinted area has a rectangular shape.

Page in the book with the entire engraving showing an unprinted area in the right corner below.

Title page of the book. Printed text surrounded by an engraved border reading ‘P. Ovidius Nasonis Metamorphoses.’ The imprint clarifies the book was published by Jan I Moretus.

We all slip. In 1591, so did 1 of Mynken Liefrinck’s workmen quite literally. While printing engravings for this edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses published by Jan I Moretus, a stray paper slip seems to have been left between plate & sheet. Its edge blocked ink, leaving a defined unprinted corner.

Pleasingly meta to find some printed binding waste with a whole page of definitions of the word bind/binding. In a medical work by Leonart Fuchs, printed at Lyons in 1550 & bequeathed to @theulspeccoll.bsky.social in 1591 by Thomas Lorkyn, Regius Professor of Physic. N*.13.49(G).

Introduction to Making Medieval Manuscripts (Practice Based) This course introduces students to the complicated and messy processes of production through which pre-modern manuscripts were created. It offers a mixture of talks and practical sessions that give…

The “messy” course returns to London’s palaeography summer school, 8-12 June. A chance to make your own medieval manuscript. Places are limited so book now (tell your friends)! #medievalsky taught by the amazing @saracharles.bsky.social @stevelawesarts.bsky.social 👇🎨🫟
palaeography.uk/study/short-...

Call for applications!

We are looking for a small press to take up a temporary residency at UCL!

£5,000 to spend flexibly, an opportunity to work with outstanding collections & collaborate with brilliant students and staff!

blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll...

A selection of books form the Fagel Collection

TCD Library is recruiting a Senior Bibliographer to help catalogue the Fagel Collection! This is a fabulous professional opportunity to work on one of Europe's great early modern private libraries. Closing 10 March at noon. Full details available at www.tcd.ie/hr/vacancies

A handwritten note reading "Sarum Primer in ruinous condition, had better not be touched until it is to be mended. Found in the roof of a cottage in Suffolk"

A small book whose cover has fallen off. There are wormholes in the back and many pages have crumbled away.

A small book which appears to have been nibbled by rodents.

Love opening up a box or two in the stacks to see what's inside and found two absolute treasures today. First up, a poor ruinous mid-sixteenth century primer which alas has not yet been mended, and doesn't appear in the catalogue. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social 1/2

Shoutout to my amazing colleagues at Cambridge & Birmingham on the 'Small Performances' project into John Baskerville's typographic punches - today is released a @camdiglib.bsky.social collection of imagery of the punches. Check it out! cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/...

Puzzle Binding!

Tricky! These are almost as rare as hen's teeth, and we just...
Had One???
And, it includes HOW Many Books? (Five from Germany c. 1601 and a blank one at last count...) #Vexierbuch #DosADos @newberrylibrary.bsky.social (Case C 823 .966)

Early modern books with parchment and leather covers on a shelf with the spine out. In the middle a book with a parchment cover and on the spine a label with the monogram PLNTN.

A couple of early modern books with gold-tooled leather covers with the spine out, on a few on which the spines contain a label with the monogram PLNTN.

Detail of a small piece of paper with the monogram PLNTN printed on it.

Long pieces of paper with various monograms PLNTN printed on it.

Owning a printing office comes in handy when your family library needs labels for the books: just print the labels with the monogram on paper first, then paste it onto the spines!

#bookhistory #earlymodern #rarebooks 📚💙📜

My new book, An Injury to All: The Unmaking of the British Working Class, is now listed in Verso's trade catalogue for 2026.

You can find it here: versobooks.com/en-gb/pages/...

Norman MacCaig Climbing Suilven I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust A mountain down and down. Between my feet a loch shines in the brown, Its silver paper crinkled and edged with rust. My lungs say No; But down and down this treadmill hill must go. Parishes dwindle. But my parish is This stone, that tuft, this stone And the cramped quarters of my flesh and bone. I claw that tall horizon down to this; And suddenly My shadow jumps huge miles away from me.

I nod and nod to my own shadow and thrust
A mountain down and down.
Between my feet a loch shines in the brown,
Its silver paper crinkled and edged with rust…

—Norman MacCaig, “Climbing Suilven”
from BETWEEN MOUNTAIN AND SEA: Poems From Assynt (Birlinn, 2018)
#poetry
birlinn.co.uk/product/betw...

This is my new book (26/026). It's the 1st time in years that I'll be published as 'Shona' rather than 'S.G.'and I am very happy to be reclaiming my name. It's about a reading society formed in a northern Scottish town in the 1830s. Drama ensues. (My mother-in-law crocheted the shawl 🧶)

An evening with Shona MacLean: The Cromarty Library Circle - Culture Perth & Kinross Get ready to welcome the bestselling author of The Bookseller of Inverness to Birnam Arts!

Book launch: The Cromarty Library Circle
25 Feb, Dunkeld: £5
@shonamaclean.bsky.social launches her latest novel, THE CROMARTY LIBRARY CIRCLE: a Scottish town on the cusp of change & the townspeople whose lives will be irrevocably altered over one tumultuous year
www.culturepk.org.uk/event/an-eve...

New our blog, @jamesafox.bsky.social on Robert Burns and the how-to of barrel gauging 📏🛢📖🍺

howtobook.hypotheses.org/5697

#bookhistory #robertburns #taxes

Applications for our rare books librarian position at the University of Arizona are open until Feb 9 (next week)
We have a fab diverse collection, great people to work with, and amazing Mexican food.
arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

I'm not on the search, please feel free to reach out w qs!

First London Palaeography Seminar of 2026 coming up! Eyal Poleg, no less, speaking on 'The Science of Erasures' - Tuesday 3rd February, 5:30pm Senate House and online. To learn more and to register:
ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Stevenson Lecture 2026 | Richard Oswald’s Library: Slavery, Collecting, and the Invention of Rare Books

This year's Stevenson Lecture will examine the library assembled at Auchincruive House in Ayr by Glasgow merchant Richard Oswald (c.1705–1784) — in light of Oswald’s extensive profits from the transatlantic slave trade.

📅 25 Feb, 6pm
📍 Senate House, London
This event is free, booking is required.

Pforzheimer Lecture How Renaissance Scholars and Printers Decided on the Size of Books w/Dr. Ann Blair Wednesday, January 21 at 6 p.m.

The most exciting #BookHistory talk of the season is coming up next week!

Join us @ransomcenter.bsky.social or online as Ann Blair delivers the 2026 Pforzheimer lecture. This talk has Erasmus, Gessner, and volumes both large &small!

Learn more: www.eventbrite.com/e/pforzheime...

#booksky 🗃️📜📚

View of sunrise looking East over Glasgow from the top floor of University of Glasgow Library. Building on left with “University Library” in large white signage. Snow-covered buildings far below. Blue sky and rising sun

Back to work! Happy New Year, all!

On reading both sides of a piece of paper: a mini essay

adamsmyth.substack.com/p/bothsidesi...

How to Spot AI Hallucinations Like a Reference Librarian The verification tricks that would make fact-checkers weep with joy.

“The tell isn’t that fake citations look wrong. It’s that they look too right. Too convenient. Too perfectly aligned with whatever point the AI is making“
open.substack.com/pub/cardcata...

Yes, you haven’t seen it? I’m away on holiday just now with just my phone but if I can’t manage to work it out I’ll send once I get back

Yes thanks, found it. I forgot to say. A reference and citation to it in a forthcoming article on the Scottish reception of ‘Argenis’ (I hope, at least! At submitted stage just now)

An open book on a stand. On the left hand page is the grid with holes in each box and names to the left, like a spreadsheet. On the right are the backs of the holes from the next page.

Books = amazing tech. Here's an offertory book recording donations on shabbat. To heed the prohibition on writing during sabbath the page has a grid with holes that correspond to an amount. Thread goes thru the hole pledged; when paid, thread comes out. jewishmuseum.org.uk/50-objects/c...

Palaeographers: you definitely should consider applying to this illustrious fund:

Peter McLagan senior (1774-1860): enslaver, plantation owner and landed proprietor - The History of Parliament Dr Martin Spychal explores the life of Peter McLagan senior (1774-1860). A farmer’s son from Perthshire, McLagan senior acquired considerable wealth as an enslaver and plantation owner in Demerara…

Following on from his article on Peter McLagan, Scotland's first Black MP, Dr Martin Spychal has explored the life of his father, Peter McLagan senior, and his ownership of enslaved people in Demerara (modern-day Guyana):

historyofparliament.com/2025/12/11/p...