Adam Smith’s Library provides an open curated catalogue of the books owned by Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith during his life, 1723-90. A full listing of these books can be found here
On this site you can:
- view colour photographs of the marginalia and readers’ marks in Adam Smith’s library books
- search the catalogue of Smith’s library books here, by author, titles, publication details, and marginalia
- download the full catalogue data here
- get a quick view of facts and figures about Smith’s library here
- read introductory materials about Adam Smith’s book collecting and Identifying Adam Smith’s Handwriting, with further materials coming soon here
- locate copies of Adam Smith’s library books where they are held today in repositories in Japan, Scotland, England, Ireland, Italy, and the USA here
This version was made available in June 2025. It contains 1869 catalogue entries for Smith’s books across 23 repositories. This version is under development and testing and we welcome user feedback. The remaining survey will be completed in late 2025 at which point additional materials will be made available.