This is a book about readers on the move in the age of Victorian empire. It examines the libraries and reading habits of five reading constituencies from the long nineteenth century: shipboard emigrants, Australian convicts, Scottish settlers, polar explorers, and troops in the First World War. What was the role of reading in extreme circumstances? How were new meanings made under strange skies? How was reading connected with mobile communities in an age of expansion? Uncovering a vast range of sources from the period, from diaries, periodicals, and literary culture, Bill Bell reveals some remarkable and unanticipated insights into the way that reading operated within and upon the British Empire for over a century.

Whether in the creation of early manuscripts, in the formation of libraries, through fine printing, or the development of mass media, Scotland's contributions to the history of the book, both within the nation and beyond its boundaries, have been remarkable.
Published in four volumes, The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland brings together the work of leading scholars in order to investigate the history of the Scottish book from earliest times to the present.
The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland
Volume 4: Professionalism and Diversity 1880-2000
Edited by David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery
'Much more than just an account of how books were physically produced in and commercially distributed from Scotland, this volume explains the interaction of Scottish writers with their publishers and the changing media environment in which both publishers and writers have had to operate. The broad scope of the publishing economy presented in each chapter is counterpointed by the fine detail of individual struggles to surmount the challenges of publishing in a country moving from the centre to the margins of a global industry. In fascinating detail, volume 4 of The Edinburgh History of the Book recounts the transformation in Scotland's publishing and literary fortunes from 1880 to 2000.' - Cairns Craig, Director of the AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen
'Volume Four of The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland presents a deeply researched and inclusive account of Scottish publishing, reading, and writing through a period that saw major shifts in the country's role in the international world of print. Lucidly writtenand theoretically astute, its overview essays are balanced by engaging studies of specific features ranging from paper mills to Harry Potter. The authors and editors are to be congratulated for this foundational contribution to the cultural history of Scotland and to book history worldwide.' - Carole Gerson, Simon Fraser University, editor of volume 3 of History of the Book in Canada
In this volume a range of distinguished contributors provide an original analysis of the book in Scotland during a period that has been until now greatly under-researched and little understood.
The issues covered by this volume include the professionalisation of publishing, its scale, technological developments, the role of the state, including the library service, the institutional structure of the book in Scotland, industrial relations, union activity and organisation, women and the Scottish book, and the economics of publishing. Separate chapters cover Scottish publishing and literary culture, publishing genres, the art of print culture, distribution, and authors and readers. The volume also includes an innovative use of illustrative case studies.

The church is not a building. It is a people that God has called together and made alive by faith. Although the activities of the church are important this book begins with who God's people are - recognizing that the church's activity results from its identity. When we call children to be a part of the church, we are calling them to be a part of a gospel people. And, as a gospel people, the church is a believing family, a community of missionaries, servants, learners and worshipers. This book is a call to God's people to live as the people that God has made them to be.

In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, books of travel and exploration were much more than simply the printed experiences of intrepid authors. They were works of both artistry and industry - products of the complex, and often contested, relationships between authors and editors, publishers and printers. These books captivated the reading public and played a vital role in creating new geographical truths. In that age of global wonder and of expanding empires, there was no publisher more renowned for its travel books than the House of John Murray. Drawing on detailed examination of the John Murray Archive of manuscripts, images, and the firm's correspondence with its many authors - a list that included such illustrious explorers and scientists as Charles Darwin and Charles Lyell, and literary giants like Jane Austen, Byron, and Sir Walter Scott - Travels into Print considers how journeys of exploration became published accounts and how travelers sought to demonstrate the faithfulness of their written testimony and to secure their personal credibility. This fascinating study in historical geography and book history takes modern readers on a journey into the nature of exploration, the production of authority in published travel narratives, and the creation of geographical authorship - a journey bound together by the unifying force of a world-leading publisher.