Acknowledgements
Our first and greatest acknowledgements are to the Earl and Countess of Crawford and Balcarres and to Lord and Lady Balniel, for their unfailing encouragement and hospitality. They opened their home, library and archive to us time and again, and have kindly given permission for the reproduction of the numerous photographs in the following pages. This project could not have happened without them.
Many libraries and archives opened their doors to our search for strayed Lindsay family volumes. For help in making these books available we are grateful to staff at the Advocates Library, Edinburgh, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Birmingham University Library, The Bodleian Library, Edinburgh University Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, Glasgow University Library, Jesus College Library (Oxford), New College Library (Edinburgh), the National Library of Scotland, New York Public Library, the Royal Botanic Garden Library (Edinburgh), the Royal Observatory Library (Edinburgh), the Schøyen Collection, the Signet Library (Edinburgh), St Andrews University Library, Trinity College Library (Cambridge), University of Illinois Library, University of London Library, Worcester College Library (Oxford), and Yale University’s Beinecke and Law School libraries. We are particularly grateful to the Bodleian Library for their efforts in locating the uncatalogued, unique copy of the 1792 auction catalogue of the Lindsay library at Balcarres.
Our friends and colleagues have offered invaluable advice on various aspects of this project. We are glad to be able to thank Nicolas Barker, Iain Beavan, Isabelle de Conihout, Kenneth Dunn, Mirjam Foot, Daryl Green, Stephen Hebron, Brian Hillyard, Richard Ovenden and Murray Simpson, among others, for their contributions. Particular thanks go to Jane Stevenson, the author of the first chapter, and Peter Davidson for their long-term interest in and work on the Lindsay library and to Kam Aghtan and Tess Goodman for their groundwork on portions of the Catalogue.
We are grateful to Andrew Pettegree for his kind support and scholarly acumen throughout this project, to Duncan McAra for a final round of copy-editing, and to Francis Knikker and colleagues at Brill for their invaluable role in seeing our book through the press.
Last but not least, we are both indebted to our families – Dawn, Vera, Martin, and Sarah – for much patience, good humour, and assistance during a lengthy but always enjoyable journey of discovery.
Kelsey Jackson Williams and William Zachs
Crail and Edinburgh
May 2021