Dates

• Existence: 1905 - 1988

Biography

James Clarkson Corson was born in Edinburgh on 30 June 1905. He was educated at Daniel Stewart’s College from 1911 to 1924 before entering Edinburgh University to read history. Having graduated in 1928, Corson stayed on to prepare a Ph.D. on Doctrines of Resistance and Non-Resistance during the Revolution of 1688 (1934). Before completing his postgraduate work, however, Corson had taken up a post at the University Library. At first he was employed as an Assistant Librarian, but he soon rose to the position of Deputy Librarian in 1939, where he was to remain until his retirement in 1965. Today Corson is best known to Scott scholars for his 1943 publication A Bibliography of Sir Walter Scott: A Classified and Annotated List of Books and Articles Relating to his Life and Works 1797-1940 and for his Notes and Index to Sir Herbert Grierson's Edition of the Letters of Sir Walter Scott (Oxford, 1979), both of which remain standard reference works in the field. His most durable legacy, however, is one of the most diverse and significant archives of Scott materials. The Corson Collection, almost certainly the world’s largest self-standing collection of Scottiana, was sold to Edinburgh University under an agreement in 1978, and was transferred to the University Library in Edinburgh in 1989, a year after Corson’s death.

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