Here are books, posters, photos and more from the rare books collections at the National Library of Scotland. Some of them are fully text searchable. You can also access them all via the Digital Gallery.
We list the most recently digitised items first.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica
The first 10 editions of the editions of the encyclopaedia (1771-1903) - Rise of literacy
A selection of books from 1460 to 1900 showing the development of literacy - Broadsides from the Crawford Collection
More than 2,000 broadsides printed between 1501 and 1897 - James Scott bindings
A set of 'The British Poets' series bound by James Scott of Edinburgh - Street literature about Napoleon's Wars
Chapbooks, mostly ballads about conflicts with Napoleon Bonaparte - Shakespeare quartos
31 books of Shakespeare's plays, printed between 1600 and 1639 - Antiquarian Books of Scotland
Books published after 1640, covering a wide range of subjects - Chapbooks printed in Scotland
Over 3,000 chapbooks published in the 18th and 19th centuries - Rare items in Gaelic
Out-of-copyright Gaelic items printed between 1631 and 1900. - Bibliotheca Lindesiana catalogues
A record of special library collections of the Earls of Crawford and Balcarres. - Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society publications
Magazines published between 1865 and 1880 - Advocates Library catalogues
A record of mostly printed items held by the Advocates Library - Edinburgh characters by J Jenkins
Coloured caricatures of celebrities and unknown characters - Gospel of St Matthew adapted for the blind
A 19th-century volume with embossed words - Publications by Scottish clubs
Historical texts from the 12th-19th centuries, edited by Scottish clubs - Chalmers' 'Caledonia'
Volumes 3-7 of this 19th-century account of Scottish counties - Biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen
Portraits and biographies of famous Scots, mostly 16th-19th centuries - Scotia Depicta
A 19th-century volume of engravings and descriptions of Scottish places - Theatre posters 1870-1900
A glimpse of theatre in 19th-century Edinburgh - English ballads
Over 2,300 broadside ballads, mostly from 19th-century England - 'Kidnapped'
The first edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure tale from 1886 - Jacobite prints and posters
Portraits and illustrations relating to the Jacobite Rebellions in 1715 and 1745 - The Aberdeen Breviary
The church service book that brought printing to Scotland - Early Gaelic book collections
Several hundred books in Gaelic and other Celtic languages - Morall fabillis of Esope the Phyrgia
'Aesop's Fables' put into Scots by 15th-century poet Robert Henryson - The Gutenberg Bible
Our rare copy of the first book printed in Europe with moveable type - Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect
The first published collection of poems by Robert Burns - Photographs of the south side of Edinburgh
Arthur Henry Rushbrook's photos taken in 1929 - Scottish bridges
Photos of Forth Bridge construction and the Tay Bridge after collapse - The spread of Scottish printing
Read an early item produced in Scotland's first 33 printing towns - The word on the street
Over 1,800 broadsides with news and ballads from 1650 and 1910 - Playbills of the Theatre Royal Edinburgh
A selection of playbills from an important 19th-century theatre - The Moir Rare book collection
An introduction to John William Moir's collection of beekeeping books - James VI and the Union of the Crowns
An introduction to the union of 1603 and the monarch behind it - Pencils of light
Two early photo albums from Edinburgh Calotype Club - The photographs of John Thomson
A small selection of the work of the Victorian photojournalism pioneer - Scottish history in print
Two Jacobite sources and a guide to historical documents - Scottish decorative bookbinding
Examples of bindings from our collection which spans 500 years - The first Scottish books
Nine of the earliest books printed in Scotland, in or around 1508.