Andrew Chalmers of Parliament Close

Each morning almost certainly began before sunrise. Apprentices unlocked heavy wooden shutters, swept the shop floors, unpacked newly printed books arriving from the city's presses, balanced ledgers recording customers' purchases, and prepared orders for delivery throughout Scotland. Lawyers stopped in before court to obtain recently published legal treatises. How cool! Ministers searched for new sermons and theological works. Students browsed educational texts while country gentlemen visiting the capital carried books home to estates scattered across the kingdom. Throughout every day, Andrew watched ideas move from printers to readers, gaining an education that reached far beyond the simple mechanics of selling books.

For the young man who had left the quiet fields of Dam only weeks before, Parliament Close had become an entirely different kind of classroom.