Glimpses into a Town's Reading Habits in Enlightenment Scotland: Analysing the Borrowings of Gray Library, Haddington, 1732–1816

This article examines a unique record in library and book history: the detailed lending record of a Scottish town library from the early eighteenth century through to the early nineteenth century. Unusually for such an early library this was a free public library, open to all residents of the town of Haddington in East Lothian, not charging any fee to join or borrow books.This means that not only is the lending record valuable for researchers of reading history,especially given the rarity of such lending records, but it can also provide new insights into the minds and interests of its borrowers. Until now evidence for reading practices has been little used in wider social and cultural studies in Scotland, though elsewhere it has shed light for example on pre-Revolutionary France and social and cultural changes in seventeenth-century Ireland. This shortfall is particularly surprising given the Enlightenment context, but most research into Scottish Enlightenment reading has focused on either major cities, particularly Edinburgh, or elite readers with limited investigation of its impact on other parts of society. A rare Scottish provincial study is Allan’s investigation of the books bought for Perth’s subscription