Scottish Enlightenment Diary

This hardback desk diary is illustrated throughout with John Kay’s masterful etchings of Edinburgh life and society during the Scottish Enlightenment – one of the truly great intellectual and cultural movements that the world has ever seen. Its achievements in science, philosophy, history, economics, and other disciplines were immense. This beautiful week-to-view diary pays tribute to the movement by recording the landmark dates and ideas that made the Scottish Enlightenment such a wondrous moment, and capturing the spirit of the time in the brilliant etchings of Edinburgh caricaturist John Kay (1742-1826). Although John Kay served his apprenticeship as a barber and followed this profession for many years in the heart of Edinburgh’s Old Town, his consuming passion was observing and drawing the world around him. In 1785 he gave up his barber shop in Parliament Square to become a full-time sketcher and painter of miniatures, producing an estimated 900 portraits and caricatures over a long and prolific career.