Bannatyne Club and Maitland Club

Date range: 1823-1867

Medium: Printed

Number of items: 250 items (dispersed).

The Bannatyne Club, the exclusive Edinburgh bibliographical society, was established by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) in 1823 on the model of the Roxburghe Club, for the purpose of printing unpublished or long out-of-print material relative to the history and literature of Scotland. Its name derived from George Bannatyne (1545–1607/8), compiler of the celebrated Bannatyne manuscript. The Library holds a complete set of the 176 volumes published by the Club up to 1867.

The Maitland Club was founded in Glasgow in March 1828 to ‘print works illustrative of the antiquities, history and literature of Scotland’, and named after the Scottish poet and lawyer, Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington (1496–1586). Again, a complete set of the publications of this society up to 1859 is available.

These collections are a major source for Scottish literature and history.

Further information:

• Recorded in Library Search.
• Maitland Club (Glasgow), Catalogue of the Works Printed for the Maitland Club: Instituted March, M.DCCC.XXVIII. With Lists of the Members and Rules of the Club ([Edinburgh]: Maitland Club, 1836).

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library