Edinburgh Rare Book Fair 2026 Details
Edinburgh Book Fair returns this week to the country's capital running March 20-21 at the Intercontinental Edinburgh The George Hotel.
Entry is free to the fair which is Scotland's largest rare book fair and features dozens of specialist booksellers from around the country. It is organised by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association and the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association and will be opened on March 20 by collector and scholar Bill Zachs, Director of Blackie House Library and Museum.
Associated events running as part of the wider Rare Books Edinburgh week include a series of talks including:
- March 20: John Kay and the Golden Age, a lecture to mark the bicentenary of Scottish caricaturist and engraver John Kay’s death at 2pm in the Assembly Rooms
- March 24: A Legacy in Pages- The History of the RCSEd Library, a look at how the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Library has preserved centuries of medical knowledge, at 1.15pm in the Surgeon’s Hall Museums
- March 24: The History of Folk Horror with Dr Joan Passey, Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Bristol, who will trace the history of folk horror from the 19th century to the 21st, at 6.45pm in the Assembly Roxy
- March 27: Initial Steps Towards an Edition of the Poetry and Related Writings of Mary, Queen of Scots, the Edition Spring Lecture 2026 given by Emily Wingfield, Professor of English and Older Scots Literature at the University of Birmingham, at 4pm in Project Room (1.06), 50 George Square
Related exhibitions in the city include a new Treasures exhibit at the National Library of Scotland telling the story of how the National Library of Scotland was established, and the National Galleries of Scotland's Found! Raeburn’s Lost Portrait of Robert Burns which focuses on the discovery of Sir Henry Raeburn’s elusive portrait of poet Robert Burns after more than 220 years.
