A selection of 57 items from the collection of the Rev Dr John Stirton (1871-1944), CVO DD FSA (SCOT), minister of Crathie church, book collector and writer. Dr Stirton also served as librarian at Balmoral Castle and domestic Chaplain to the King in Scotland, and donated items to the library at Holyroodhouse. The items in this collection range from pamphlets relating to events during his royal service to fine examples of early continental printings of Classical and Renaissance authors, including an Aldine Press copy of the works of Xenophon (1525) which contains the hand-coloured arms of a contemporary Italian nobleman on the title page. There is also a two-volume set of Duns Scotus's 'Super sententias' (Paris, 1513) and a copy of Erasmus's 'Lucubrationes' (Strasbourg, 1517) which contains fragments of apparently contemporary Latin legal documents of French origin on the inner covers.

Organisation

The books have been catalogued individually and have the shelfmark 'Stirton.'.

Acquisition

The books were presented to the Library in 1943 as part of a series of donations by Stirton to the Library (between 1936 and 1944 he also presented nine pre-1501 books to the Library, see Incunabula Collection).

Related collections

Manuscripts from Dr Stirton's collection were also presented and bequeathed to the Library between 1938 and 1944. The manuscripts are held at MSS.3053-3073 and MSS.3237-3240; they are described and indexed in Vol. 2 of the Library's Catalogue of manuscripts.