Undiscovered Scotland

 

"Edinburgh: The Autobiography" edited by Alan Taylor is a fascinating book. It has been published to coincide with Edinburgh's 900th anniversary celebrations in 2024 and tells the story of the city through the words of those who have written about it over the centuries. The result is a marvellous collection of stories and accounts whose differing styles and intended purposes ensure there are delights pretty much every time you turn a page. If you want to know more about a city you already know well, then you will find this a delightful compilation. This is a book we'd highly recommend to anyone in or from Edinburgh. On the other hand, if you are simply intending to visit Edinburgh for the first time there's so much here to help you understand the background and gain more from your first encounter with the city so it has a wider audience too.

"Edinburgh: The Autobiography" is divided into a series of chronological chapters. The first covers the period 600 to 1699 and we enjoyed discovering that the first writing about Edinburgh was in a poem that probably dates back to around 600. All the usual suspects have their say in this book, people such as Daniel Defoe and Robert Chambers; and of course Sir Walter Scott, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Louis Stevenson. But you get the sense that the editor has worked hard to track down less obvious contributors who help keep the content very fresh and engaging.

You get a great sense of the range of content from the publishers' blurb: "From one of the earliest mentions of its name in the sixth century to the Covid lockdowns of the twenty-first, this is a magnificent portrait of one of the world’s great cities in its many iterations, from ‘Edinburgh, the sink of abomination’ to the Athens of the North and everything – including the home of the Enlightenment, the Festival City, the Aids Capital of Europe and a Mecca for tourists seeking tartan tat – in between. As the nation’s capital it has been critical to its progress and a witness to epochal events, such the tumultuous reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Reformation, the Forty-Five rebellion, the Disruption of the Church of Scotland and the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament. All of these and more feature. But this is not simply a book about the great and good, the famous and infamous. There is testimony aplenty from ordinary folk who may not have made their mark on history but who have contributed to Edinburgh’s ever-expanding tapestry. There are stories body snatching and murder, drunkenness and drug-taking, sex and shopping, as well rants against inclement weather and the city council."