RAMORNIE HOUSE, FIFE - DIARY TURNED COMMONPLACE BOOK

[RESERVED] Pre-printed diary used interestingly by a member of Earl Haig’s family as a commonplace/ day book.

Chunky small quarto bound in full calf, splitting slighly at outer hinges but very robust still. Laid in is a selection of quotations from Carlyle written on ‘Ramornie Ladybank’ headed paper. Marbled endpapers. Preceding the diary pages are two albumen photographs of Ramornie in its late 19th century pomp. At the end of the MS an interior photo showing two women, the older who might be Douglas Haig’s wife Maud Vivian and a page earlier, a photograph of a young woman playing the violin. The book’s owner has added a few lines to each of the first 200 pages quoting from Cardinal Newman, Emerson, Thoreau, Plato, Longfellow etc. The Haig family owned several estates in Scotland; Ramornie fell into disrepair and was demolished in the 1960s.