Special Collections
The David Bellamy Natural History Library
We were very pleased to be able to acquire Professor David Bellamy's personal library of natural history and botany books. The library, which contains a number of elegant copies of collectable natural history volumes, is accompanied by a series of Bellamy's owner inscriptions and letters.
David James Bellamy OBE (1933-1919), a celebrated television presenter, writer and environmental campaigner, was a professor of botany at Durham University, and a key figure popular science broadcasting and public awareness of environmental issues from the 1970s to the 1990s.
The Aonghas MacNeacail Poetry Collection
This collection brings together volumes from the personal library of Aonghas MacNeacail, one of Scotland's preeminent Gaelic language poets, alongside inscribed editions of some of his most important works. The collection features a number of presentation copies of important modern poetry texts, dedicated (often lovingly) by the authors to Aonghas, a poet who they clearly admired in their own work.
The collection also includes first editions of Aonghas's own works, including inscriptions from friend and peer Alasdair Gray, with whom Aonghas worked on numerous occasions.