The Collection has its genesis in the will of Edward Clark.
Edward Clark was born in Edinburgh, on 11 December 1864. His paternal grandmother Isabel was sister to Adam Black, Lord Provost of the City of Edinburgh from 1843 to 1848, and a Member of Parliament from 1854 to 1865.
More relevant to our interests is that he began business as a publisher in Edinburgh in 1815, taking his nephew Charles into partnership and thus founding the firm of A. & C. Black.
Black published the Edinburgh Review for many years, and also acquired the copyright in the Encyclopaedia Britannica when the business of Archibald Constable & Co. was dissolved in 1828.
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