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In Charles Areskine’s Library, Karen Baston uses a detailed study of an eighteenth-century Scottish advocate’s private book collection to explore key themes in the Scottish Enlightenment including secularisation, modernisation, internationalisation, and the development of legal literature in Scotland.
By exploring a surviving manuscript dated 1731that lists a Scottish lawyer’s library, Karen Baston demonstrates that the books Charles Areskine owned, used in practice, and read for pleasure embedded him in the intellectual culture that expanded in early eighteenth-century Scotland. Areskine and his fellow advocates emerged as scholarly and sociable gentlemen who led their nation. Lawyers were integral to and integrated with the Scottish society that allowed the Scottish Enlightenment to take root and flourish within Areskine’s lifetime.
By exploring a surviving manuscript dated 1731that lists a Scottish lawyer’s library, Karen Baston demonstrates that the books Charles Areskine owned, used in practice, and read for pleasure embedded him in the intellectual culture that expanded in early eighteenth-century Scotland. Areskine and his fellow advocates emerged as scholarly and sociable gentlemen who led their nation. Lawyers were integral to and integrated with the Scottish society that allowed the Scottish Enlightenment to take root and flourish within Areskine’s lifetime.
Price: $189.00
Pages: 258
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Series: Library of the Written Word
Publication Date:
19 April 2016
ISBN: 9789004315372
Format: Other
“Baston has written a book rich in interesting detail and well worth having on one’s shelves. She is to be congratulated on this addition to the literature on private libraries and the history of the law in the Scottish Enlightenment.”
Brian Hillyard, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, Scotland. In: Library & Information History, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2017), pp. 143-144.
“This book is about much more than one man and his books. It is a profoundly scholarly study of the intellectual context of Areskine’s library that reflects the impact of Enlightenment culture on the life of a busy lawyer and judge. […] The British and European aspects of Areskine’s career that emerge from this thoughtful book demonstrate the importance of the painstaking research on which it is based, as well as what we might learn from future projects which could benefit from its example.”
Alexander Murdoch, University of Edinburgh. In: Reviews in History (review no. 2062).
Brian Hillyard, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian, Scotland. In: Library & Information History, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2017), pp. 143-144.
“This book is about much more than one man and his books. It is a profoundly scholarly study of the intellectual context of Areskine’s library that reflects the impact of Enlightenment culture on the life of a busy lawyer and judge. […] The British and European aspects of Areskine’s career that emerge from this thoughtful book demonstrate the importance of the painstaking research on which it is based, as well as what we might learn from future projects which could benefit from its example.”
Alexander Murdoch, University of Edinburgh. In: Reviews in History (review no. 2062).
Karen Baston, Ph.D. (2012), University of Edinburgh, has published on Scottish legal history and is a bibliographer whose publications include (with Ernest Metzger) The Roman Law Library of Alan Ferguson Rodger, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry (Traditio Iuris Romani, 2012).