Rare Books and Special Collections Group

©National Library Scotland

Images from the the earliest surviving dated Scottish book, which celebrates its 500th anniversary on Friday 4th April. This is an edition of John Lydgate’s The Complaint of the Black Knight, but here entitled The Maying and Disport of Chaucer, a title and attribution found in some other Scottish sources. The image above shows the title page, with Walter Chepman’s device. Those below show the colophon with the printing details, including the date, and Andrew Myllar’s windmill device, that puns on his name. This unique item is in a volume in the National Library of Scotland known as the Chepman and Myllar Prints, and is fully digitised at http://www.nls.uk/firstscottishbooks/

Details of the anniversary celebrations can be seen at http://www.500yearsofprinting.org/


©National Library Scotland