Charles Areskine's library : : lawyers and their books at the dawn of the Scottish enlightenment / / by Karen Baston.

• Author: Baston, Karen.
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, 2016.
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Library of the Written Word 48.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (265 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

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.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: Scottish Lawyers in the Scottish Enlightenment -- An Enlightened Advocate's Library -- Two Scholars: Areskine, Aikenhead, and Their Books -- Scottish Legal Scholars Abroad -- A Flourishing Market for Books -- Advocates' Books in Early Eighteenth-Century Scotland -- "Miscellaneous" Books: Charles Areskine's Polite Learning -- The Scottish Gentleman's Library -- The Fates of Books: The Alva Collections -- Conclusion -- Works Cited -- Index.