Author Ian Rankin gifts archive to National Library of Scotland

Ian Rankin has also donated correspondence with authors such as JK Rowling and Iain Banks

BBC Ian Rankin says he never intended to be a crime writer — Ian Rankin has also donated correspondence with authors such as JK Rowling and Iain Banks

Crime novelist Ian Rankin has gifted his literary archive to the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

The Fife-born author's collection features 50 boxes of material spanning more than 45 years.

He has also donated correspondence with authors such as JK Rowling, Iain Banks, Ruth Rendell and Val McDermid.

Rankin, most renowned for his series of Rebus detective novels, described the material as "a pretty complete author's life, late-20th century-style".

He said: "I remember that in my first week as a postgraduate student, we were given a tour of the National Library of Scotland, including access to the basement levels.

"Those vaulted underground corridors would reappear in the climactic scenes of my first Rebus novel.

"The library has seemed like a friend ever since, so it seems fitting - as well as a thrill and an honour - that my archive should find a permanent home there."

The library has said it will recruit a curator to catalogue, promote and preserve the Ian Rankin archive "into perpetuity alongside other Scottish literary giants."