Professionals, their Private Libraries, and Wider Reading Habits in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Scotland

Abstract

This paper studies professionals, a group particularly relevant to Scottish reading culture in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A variety of case studies are used, drawing on evidence such as library borrowing records, evidence of book ownership, and readers’ diaries and lists of books read. Issues explored include the private libraries that professionals built, the balance between work-related reading and their wider recreational reading interests, how professionals compared to other readers in Scotland and further afield, and change over time.