The library at Abbotsford, consisting of over 7,000 volumes, remains as it was when Sir Walter Scott arranged the books on the shelves.

Scott was an avid book-collector from childhood and the library includes exceptional collections of printed works and manuscripts on witchcraft and folk lore, Scottish history, travel and exploration, literature and law, written in some seventeen different languages. Many of the books have been used as ‘working tools’ for his own writing and are annotated by him; others were gifts sent by admiring authors and publishers from Europe, America and even Australia, and demonstrate the unprecedented extent of his fame.