Take a walk along Charles Street just off Bristo Square and you may just spot something rather odd: a bronze rhinoceros head sticking out of a wall.
The mysterious sculpture, which is permanently mounted to the west elevation of Edinburgh University's informatics forum, has drawn many a confused glance from fresh-faced freshers and lifelong capital locals alike.
After all, what on earth does the horned animal have to do with computer science studies? Was it nicked from the rhino enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo? Perhaps it's part of a student campaign to save endangered wildlife?
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The truth is it's none of the above, but there is a rather fascinating explanation behind this little sculpture.
The rhino head is one of two bronze sculptures which commemorates the long lost Paperback Bookshop, which was run by Traverse Theatre co-founder and cultural trailblazer, the late Jim Haynes.
In 1960, Haynes had come into the possession of a stuffed rhino's head, which he had procured from Princes Street's New Club when it was undergoing a refit, and fixed it to the front of his store.
The free-thinking Haynes, who hailed from the United States, courted controversy in the winter of 1960 when he decided to stock D.H. Lawrence's sexually-explicit bestseller, Lady Chatterley's Lover.
The infamous book had been banned in the UK for decades, but the restrictions had just been lifted.
One day, a woman entered the shop carrying a pair of fire tongs with which she picked up the book - clearly too filthy to even be touched with bare hands.
After paying for the book, the elderly lady walked out into the street and proceeded to set fire to it in an act of protest. The stunt was even caught on camera.
Unfortunately for the angry woman, in the world of publishing a book sale is a book sale even if the book in question does end up as a pile of ashes and this only boosted its already controversial reputation.
As a result of the book burning, both the Paperback Bookshop and the rhino's head (which appeared in the book burning photo) became famous far and wide.
Jim Haynes' Paperback Bookshop closed when the old Charles Street was demolished in the 1970s, but the store would never be forgotten.
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In August 2012, following the completion of the Edinburgh Informatics Forum, two sculptures, a bronze book and bronze rhino's head were unveiled to mark the site of Jim Haynes' legendary store.
A plaque is also fixed to the building, which reads: "This sculpture by William Darrell is in celebration of the cultural richness of Jim Haynes' Paperback Bookshop (1959-67) and of the merger between the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art (2011) which extends that richness many-fold."
Jim Haynes arrived to study in Edinburgh in the mid-1950s, and opened his bookshop in order to help support his studies.
The alternative book store was well-known for stocking radical literature that was difficult to find elsewhere, with Haynes developing a reputation as a counterculture figure.
The American would later co-found the capital's Traverse Theatre and the Edinburgh International Writers' Conference. He died aged 87 in Paris in January 2021.
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