Scottish Portraits

Scottish Portraits. Birlinn's Limited Editions imprint celebrates the extraordinary work of John Kay with a magnificent, beautifully bound two-volume edition of Kay's portraits and caricatures, originally published in Edinburgh in 1837-8. Alan Bell, social historian and former Librarian of The London Library, introduces Kay's life and remarkable achievement, emphasising how, with 'the impression of a passing glance', Kay created an engaging and unparalleled record of Edinburgh society during the Enlightenment. World famous figures such as Adam Smith, Walter Scott, James Hutton, Joseph Black and even Vincent Lunardi, in his famous balloon, feature alongside all kinds of Edinburgh citizens, eminent doctors and scientists, lawyers and clerics, ladies of fashion and their admirers, soldiers and merchants, murderers and criminals. John Kay's Original Portraits.