Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland

Collins Encyclopaedia of Scotland is a reference work published by HarperCollins, edited by the husband and wife team, John and Julia Keay.

Scots had provided the impetus for a number of well-known references works, Chambers Dictionary and Encyclopædia Britannica[1][2] amongst them (the latter still uses a thistle as a logo), but hitherto there had been no general purpose Scottish encyclopaedia.

The first edition, published in 1994, contained about a million words, nearly five hundred illustrations, and had 126 contributors, ranging from Derick Thomson to David Steel, from Alan Bold to Neil MacCormick and from Joy Hendry to Sir William Macpherson of Cluny.

Less "obvious" topics which have entries include the Roman general Agricola (who tried to invade Scotland), the hooded crow, Berwick-upon-Tweed (which has a stormy past, lying right on the Anglo-Scottish Border) and medicinal plants.

The second edition in 2000 contained over a hundred new articles,[4] amongst them, ones on Billy Bremner the footballer, Dolly the Sheep, the Scottish Parliament and the politician John Smith.