Watt Collection

The predominant themes within this Collection are twentieth-century printing practices and typographical design. There are specimen type books from leading companies, including the Caslon Letter Foundry, Linotype & Machinery Ltd, and Stephenson, Blake & Co. The best and most innovative book designs of the time were portrayed in the Catalogue of an Exhibition of Twentieth-Century Scottish Books, organised by the Festival of Britain; in several publications (1947-1953) of the National Book League, and, from the 1920s, reports from competitions held by the Royal Society of Arts.

Keywords

Book design, publishing

Strengths

A number of useful printing or publishing house histories are present in the Collection, such as Longmans, Swan Sonnenschein, Allen & Unwin, and Batsford, with which latter company AUP had a good and lasting business relationship. There are also some older, locally printed texts, including two from the seventeenth-century press of Edward Raban, the first printer in Aberdeen. A number of relative rarities are featured, as with The Adventures of Madiboo, a Native of the Pellew Islands, published in London, but printed by Cobban & Co in Aberdeen in 1828. The Collection also contains a number of examples of twentieth-century fine printing, as with the seven volume Works of Shakespeare, Nonesuch Press (1929-33); Francis Coventry's The History of Pompey the Little (1926) and Sterne's Sentimental Journey (1928). Both the latter came from the Golden Cockerel Press. There is also a copy of the limited edition of The Thousand and One Nights (c.1921) from the Palmer Press.

Languages

English, Latin

Identifier

Watt

Physical Characteristics

c. 290 titles.

Accumulation Date Range

to 1990s.

Contents Cate Range

1664-1983

Associated Publications

Beavan, I., 'Aberdeen University Press and the Scottish Typographical Association: an Uneasy Early Relationship,' in Images & texts: their Production and Distribution in the 18th and 19th centuries, (eds.) Peter Isaac & Barry McKay (Winchester: St Paul's Bibliographies, 1997), 143-162. Keith, Alexander, Aberdeen University Press: an Account of the Press from...1840 until...1963 (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press,1963). Watt, H. M. R., AUP: the Aberdeen University Press printed archive, 1840-1978: a Check List with Introduction and Commentary, (ed.) I. Beavan (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Library, (1994)). AU MS 3233 Records of Aberdeen University Press, with related material, 1866-1977. Available on Library OPAC or WebPAC

Accrual Status

Closed

Custodial History / Provenance

The Collection was donated by Dr H. M. R. Watt, sometime Managing Director of Aberdeen University Press. The business records of AUP (AU MS 3233) were deposited in 1986; whilst a complementary printed archive was deposited in 1989.

Access Control

Closed access - please request. Non-borrowable.