Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 24 on 05/01/2006.

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Family day out in a city of literature

Edinburgh is awash with literary references. Kate Patrick planned a family day out

On the day Harry Potter hysteria hit Edinburgh, I took my 13-year-old son Jamie to browse among the city’s antiquarian bookshops, searching for thumbed, mildewed editions of John Buchan’s 39 Steps, Robert Louis Stephenson’s Kidnapped and Conan Doyle’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, all of which appeared on a recommended reading list from his Scottish school.

Don’t let me give you the wrong impression: he’s as big a fan of Harry Potter as the next million kids; but the choice of Edinburgh for launch of the latest instalment served to underline the city’s longtime status as a stewpot for writers.

Last October it was even named the world’s first City of Literature by Unesco. Our children perhaps need to know that long before JK Rowling started brewing up her magical stories in a coffee shop, other wordsmiths – Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Conan Doyle and Stephenson among them – had written masterly work here, and that the city itself has played a role in the work of more contemporary authors too.

Take The Da Vinci Code, for example, a book that has sparked new interest in Rosslyn Chapel, which perches at the head of a steep, wooded glen just outside the Edinburgh bypass.

Built in 1446 by William St Clair, descendant of a family of Knights Templar, Rosslyn has long been on the visiting agenda of symbologists, freemasons, grailhunters, pagans, mystics and anyone who’s considering a career in stone-carving. You can also attend an Episcopalian Sunday service or get married here.
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By Kate Patrick

Section : Scottish Expeditions

Page number : 28