Creech, WILLIAM,

Creech, WILLIAM, Edinburgh bookseller, born 21st April 1745, learned his trade in Edinburgh and London, and spent some time on the Continent before beginning business in 1771. For more than forty years he issued the chief literary productions of that period in Edinburgh, including the first Edinburgh edition of Burns, and the works of Blair, Beattie, and Dugald Stewart, and Mackenzie's Mirror and Lounger. He was Lord Provost (1811–13), and died 14th January 1815. His newspaper letters and odd writings collected in Edinburgh Fugitive Pieces (1791; new ed. with memoir, 1815), contain much curious information about old Edinburgh, and the way of life of a past generation.