National Library has more than 100,000 manuscripts

The National Library of Scotland is Scotland’s largest library. With around 14 million printed items, it has more than 100,000 manuscripts, around two million maps, and 25,000 newspaper and magazine titles.

It receives roughly 320,000 new items every year, and has material in 490 languages.

The library’s collection includes The Complaint of the Black Knight, printed in 1508 – the earliest printed book in Scotland – while The John Murray Archive contains some 250,000 items from some of the greatest writers, politicians, explorers and scientists of the late 18th to the mid 20th centuries, such as Charles Darwin, Lord Byron, Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott and David Livingstone. Other works include the First Folio of Shakespeare.

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