James C. Corson

(1905-1988)
Collector and bibliographer of Sir Walter Scott
and Deputy Librarian of Edinburgh University Library

James Corson was born in Edinburgh and educated at Daniel Stewart's College and the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated MA with Honours in History in 1928 and with a PhD in 1934. He joined the University Library staff in 1930, retiring from it in 1965 as Deputy Librarian, having been Acting Librarian in the interim between the sudden death of Dr L. W. Sharp in 1959 and the arrival of his successor, Mr E. R. S. Fifoot late the following year.

The study of Sir Walter Scott was a lifelong passion (See the Walter Scott Digital Archive http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk). He was one of the world authorities on the bibliography of Scott, and derived particular pleasure from his appointment as Honorary Librarian of Abbotsford in the 1950s. He had begun collecting printed editions of Scott in the dusty secondhand bookshops of Edinburgh while he was still at school, and eventually his collection expanded to fill the old church at Lilliesleaf, near Melrose, in the old Manse of which he lived and died.

As well as his publications, notably "A bibliography of Sir Walter Scott ... 1797-1940" (Edinburgh, 1943) and "Notes and index to Sir Herbert Grierson's edition of the letters of Sir Walter Scott" (Oxford, 1979), his lasting memorial is the Corson Sir Walter Scott Collection in Edinburgh University Library. The University purchased this in 1975 at a very advantageous price, and the Library took delivery of it in 1989, after Corson's death. After the death of Mrs Ada Corson a few years later, the Library also received the residue of her estate, which has provided for the cataloguing of the Collection and the acquisition of additional material.