The Writers’ Museum: Edinburgh, a City of Literature

If you love literature, Edinburgh is the perfect city for you, and you shouldn’t miss The Writers’ Museum, a literary city’s tribute to its most beloved writers.

A museum dedicated to Edinburgh’s writers

If you love reading, you have probably enjoyed some of Edinburgh’s great writers, even if you didn’t know they were from here: Sir Walter Scott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, J.M. Barrie, Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh, among others. Sherlock Holmes, Treasure Island and, more recently, Trainspotting were all born in Scotland’s capital.

The Writers’ Museum is Edinburgh’s tribute to its literature. It is in Makars’ Court, a small square just off the Royal Mile, inside an elegant 17th-century mansion, Lady Stair’s House, a building that is worth the visit on its own. To discover more of the Royal Mile’s closes and courtyards, join our Old Town walking tour.

As you enter the square, look at the ground and you’ll see quotes from Scottish writers carved into the paving stones, in Scotland’s three languages: English, Scots and Gaelic.

In 2004, Edinburgh became the world’s first UNESCO City of Literature. The museum celebrates all the city’s writers, but focuses on three of the most important: Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. You can see their manuscripts, portraits and personal belongings, and discover their lives and stories.

Sir Walter Scott

Edinburgh never tires of honouring Sir Walter Scott, not only as a writer but as one of its most admired figures. He wrote many famous historical novels, such as Rob Roy and Ivanhoe, and poems such as The Lady of the Lake.

If you arrive in Edinburgh by train, you’ll probably arrive at Waverley Station, named after one of his novels, and one of the city’s football teams, Heart of Midlothian, shares its name with another, as does the heart-shaped mosaic on the Royal Mile.

On Princes Street, you can’t miss a huge neo-Gothic tower: the Scott Monument, built after his death.

In The Writers’ Museum you can see a first edition of Waverley and the printing press on which the Waverley novels were produced.

Robert Burns

Robert Burns, who lived in Edinburgh for a time, is known as Scotland’s national bard. Some of his poems and songs are known all over the world, such as Auld Lang Syne, sung to welcome the New Year, Tam o’ Shanter, Ae Fond Kiss and To a Mouse.

On 25 January, his birthday, Scots celebrate Burns Night, with a Burns Supper where guests recite his poems and dine on haggis, neeps and tatties, with whisky. If you are in Scotland in January, don’t miss it!

In the museum you can see an original draft of Scots Wha Hae, a cast of his skull and his writing desk.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson, another Edinburgh local, is probably the most widely read of the three outside Scotland. You surely know Treasure Island and Kidnapped, but perhaps his most famous work is The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, inspired by the story of a local character, Deacon Brodie, a respectable cabinetmaker by day and a thief by night.

In the museum you can see Stevenson’s riding boots and a ring given to him by a Samoan chief, from the island where he settled later in life.