As the world’s first UNESCO City of Literature, Edinburgh has a Writers’ Museum showcasing musty manuscripts by Robert Louis Stevenson, Robert Burns, and Sir Walter Scott. It’s also home to Stevenson’s silver tortoiseshell ring, Burns’ writing desk, and the printing press that produced Scott’s Waverley novels.

A newer addition is a book sculpture carved from Ian Rankin’s Hide and Seek, showing a moon and clouds overlooking a silver street. Its creator has been anonymously gifting these sculptures to cultural organizations ‘in support of Libraries, Books, Words, [and] Ideas.’ Outside, quotes by James Boswell, Robert Fergusson, and Muriel Spark are inscribed on the cobbled stones of Makars’ Court. To the north, The Mound overlooks the Scott Monument and Waverly Station, their names befitting this literary city.