I know one thing for sure: the Scots are serious about their writers. They celebrate the life and work of the great Ploughman Poet himself on Burns Night, with music, whiskey, poetry, and that polarizing food made famous in Burns’s verse, the haggis. After the death of Sir Walter Scott, they built the Scott Monument, a towering 200-foot gothic revival spire that dominates Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh. Both the University of Edinburgh and the University of Glasgow boast robust creative writing programs designed to train the next generation of Scottish authors. As such, it was no surprise to me that they have also founded a museum dedicated entirely to Scottish writers.
Obviously, I had to visit.
Before I set out to find the Writers’ Museum in Edinburgh, I had passed by it several times, never knowing it was there. When I looked up its location on a map, I had a moment of worry that this museum dedicated to Scottish writers – in particular to Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Louis Stevenson – was like Diagon Alley and completely hidden to Muggles (non-authorial legends, in this case?). As it turns out, I needn’t have worried, because once I knew where to look, I quickly found a tiny passageway called Lady Stair’s Close that opened into a stone courtyard dominated by a stone house at one corner, a turret rising in elegant arching lines over the door.
The house was built in 1622 by Sir William Gray of Pittendrum, but is called Lady Stair’s House after Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Stair, who owned the house during the 1700s. By the 1890s, the house had fallen into disrepair, but descendants of Sir William Gray bought it and performed restorations and demolished sections, leaving us with the house that stands today.
The entrance opens onto a winding staircase with crimson and gold walls, which leads to three different floors of exhibits. The main floor houses the Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott collections, as well as the museum bookshop. The lower floor is dedicated to Robert Louis Stevenson, and the upper story gives the history of Lady Stair’s House and houses a collection of photographs of Scottish writers outside of the great three that the museum is primarily dedicated to, including an exhibit about forgotten female writers.
The collections are organized chronologically and include both original materials and reproductions of photographs and paintings housed elsewhere, as well as items belonging to Burns, Scott, and Stevenson. Some of the most remarkable of these items are Sir Walter Scott’s dining table and Robert Louis Stevenson’s riding boots and fishing rod. There is also a dresser belonging to the Stevensons which was made by the infamous Deacon Brodie, who created a scandal when his double life was revealed. This furniture maker by day, burglar by night inspired one of Stevenson’s most famous works, The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
One of the most notable aspects of the Writers’ Museum was not part of the collection at all, but rather the friendly and helpful gentleman who was working there, welcoming visitors and taking note of where they come from; while I was in the museum, I heard notes of Tennessee, France, and Honduras – clearly Scottish literature has a great deal of international appeal. This knowledgeable gentleman, as it turned out, has studied Stevenson extensively in collections and museums all over the world, and is in fact in the process of transcribing an unpublished manuscript by RLS. He was not only able to give visitors information about how the collection was arranged, but also about Stevenson and his life and works, and details about specific items in the collection. The chat I had with him about Robert Louis Stevenson and his family enhanced the experience of visiting the Writers’ Museum and taught me a lot about RLS’s work and life. If you visit this charming little museum, you should make a point of striking up a conversation with the attendants; they are more than just guards over the items on display!
Last but not least, don’t forget to look down on your way out of the museum. The courtyard outside is decorated with paving stones engraved with quotations by Scottish authors – a nice touch to lead the way to this charming museum.
Want to know more?
Learn about the history of Lady Stair’s House from Edinburgh World Heritage
Learn more about the Writers’ Museum and its collections, or plan a trip at Edinburgh Museums
