Rare Books @ NLS

The Library has acquired a collection of individual issues of the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser newspaper from 1787 through to 1788, which probably contain the first examples of Robert Burns’s work in print in the USA! Each issue prints a poem or song by Burns to give American readers a taster of his poetry. This happenend before the first American edition Burns’s Poems chiefly in the Scottish dialect was published in July 1788.
The appearance of Burns’s work in an American newspaper, just over a year after his poems were first published in Kilmarnock shows how rapidly Burns’s fame spread in the English-speaking world. It’s also a good indicator of how close the trade and cultural ties between Scotland and the USA in the late 1780s were.

The Philadelphia story

The American edition of Burns’s Poems was the brainchild of two ex-pat Scots based in Philadelphia: Peter Stewart, a printer and bookseller, and George Hyde, a bookbinder. Copies of the Kilmarnock, or, more likely, the 1787 Edinburgh edition of Poems chiefly in the Scottish dialect must have crossed the Atlantic soon after publication. As there were no copyright laws restricting the publication of the works of British authors in the new republic, it was a relatively simple matter to print an American edition without having to worry about prosecution or payment of royalties to the author. Rather than issue a prospectus for their work, Stewart and Hyde chose the tried and tested 18th-century method of having individual poems printed in a newspaper before publishing a full edition.
The Philadelphia-printed Pennsylvania Packet was America’s first successful daily newspaper. At the time Philadephia was the financial and cultural centre of the USA, and therefore an obvious choice to showcase the poems. 25 poems were published at regular intervals in the newspaper from 24 July 1787 to 14 June 1788. The poems selected for publication which are best known today are probably “The cotter’s Saturday night” and “To a louse”.
Stewart and Hyde’s aim was to portray Burns as a sentimental, God-fearing ploughman, at one with nature and sympathetic to the American colonists who had recently freed themselves from British control. They could also count on Scottish settlers’ feelings of nostalgia for their homeland. To further promote the forthcoming edition, the newspaper also printed Henry Mackenzie’s positive review of Burns’s work, which first appeared in The Lounger in Edinburgh in December 1786 and then in The London Chronicle, which did much to publicise Burns to a wider readership in Britain.
The 1788 Philadelphia edition of Burns’s poems was followed by a New York edition printed in December of the same year. It was also published by ex-pat Scots, J. and A. Maclean, formerly of Glasgow.

The collection in the National Library

The collection of Pennsylvania Packet issues acquired by the Library contains all of the poems by Burns to have been printed in that newspaper except for one: “Scotch Drink”. It also includes two issues (7 July and 16 July 1788) containing the original publisher’s advertisement for the first American edition, and an issue ( 28 August 1787) advertising “A select collection of the most favourite Scots tunes, with variations for the piano forte or harpsichord [sic]“, composed by Alexander Reinagle.
The newspaper issues were offered to the Library by Frank Amari Jnr., a collector and dealer of early American printing and manuscripts. Mr Amari has his own particular connection to Scotland, since his mother was born and raised in Edinburgh. Two of the issues have been donated by his mother in memory of her parents, the rest were purchased from Mr Amari.

You can read more about Robert Burns in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections), and in our webpage about Burns.

Today is National Poetry Day! I’d like to celebrate this event by showcasing how a poem can act as a link between nations, in this case between Scotland and Germany.

In 1802, Walter Scott published his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Bk.5/1.3-4), a collection of “historical and romantic ballads, collected in the southern counties of Scotland”, as the subtitle said. One of these poems, ‘O gin my love were yon red rose’, was translated by Wilhelm Grimm, one half of the brothers of fairy tale fame, into German. He published this poem both in the Scots original and on the facing page in German translation along with two other Scottish ballads in a small booklet entitled Drei altschottische Lieder (5.637(13)),  i.e. Three Old Scots songs. A copy of this small book is on show in the Grimms Treasure display.

Here is a transcript of the poem ‘O gin my love were yon red rose’, which, according to the Lay of the last minstrel, comes from Mr Herd’s manuscript:

O gin my love were yon red rose,           �
That grows upon the castle wa’,       �
And I mysell a drap of dew,                                       �
Down on that red rose I would fa’.        �
O my love’s bonny, bonny, bonny;                         �
My love’s bonny and fair to see:
Whene’er I look on her weel far’d face,      �
She looks and smiles again to me.

O gin my love were a pickle of wheat,
And growing upon yon lily lee,
And I mysell a bonny wee bird,
Awa wi’ that pickle o’ wheat I wad flee.
O my love’s bonny, &c.

O gin my love were a coffer o’gowd,
And I the keeper o’ the key,
I wad open the kist whene’er I list,
And in that coffer I wad be.
O my love’s bonny, &c.

You can read more about Walter Scott in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections).
Have a look at Edinburgh University’s Walter Scott Digital Archive for more information on the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.

We recently acquired two very rare translations into Russian of Walter Scott’s epic poems The Lay of the Last Minstrel and Rokeby. Scott was probably the most popular foreign author in Russia in the 19th century. 

The Lay of the Last Minstrel was first published in 1805. The Russian translation (RB.s.2828), in prose rather than verse, appeared in 1823. The translator was Mikhail Kachenovsky (1775-1842), a professor at Moscow University and editor of the journal Vestnik Evropy (Herald of Europe). We only know of two other copies of this translation. One is held in Helsinki by the National Library of Finland, and one in St Petersburg at the National Library of Russia.

The first English edition of Rokeby appeared in 1813 and was soon translated for readers on the Continent.  The Russian translation (RB.s.2826-2827), by an unidentified translator, appeared in 1823. The Russian version of the poem is in prose, just like that of The Lay of the Last Minstrel. The National Library of Russia in St Petersburg holds a copy, but we have traced no other copies in western European libraries.

Find out more about Sir Walter Scott  in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

The Walter Scott Digital Archive maintained by Edinburgh University Library is a treasure trove of information. Have a a look at the pages about The Lay of the Last Minstrel and Rokeby.

We recently acquired an adaption of Sir Walter Scott’s novel “Kenilworth“, an adventure story set during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) with a bit of a tragic ending. What makes this acquisition so interesting is not that it is aimed at younger readers, but that it’s a Russian adaptation! It was printed in Moscow and St Petersburg in 1873, that is 52 years after the original edition.

Translations of Scott into Russian began to appear in the 1820s. Scott reached probably the widest audience of any foreign author in Russia in the 19th century. Not only that, he also had a considerable influence on the development of the Russian historical novel. It even became fashionable in 19th-century Russia to wear tartan and so-called ‘Walter Scott’ cloaks, and to dress up as characters from his novels.

You’ll find lots of information about Walter Scott’s life and works in the Walter Scott Digital Archive maintained by Edinburgh University Library. Have a look in particuar at the page about the novel “Kenilworth“.

More Information about Sir Walter Scott is available from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Here’s a book we bought not so much because of what’s in it, but because of who owned it. It’s an English translation of a theological treatise by a French noblewoman, Louise Francoise de la Baume le Blanc, Duchesse de la Valliere (1644-1710), called The penitent lady (NLS shelfmark  AB.1.211.014).  The book itself does not look terribly exciting –

but its author is certainly an interesting figure! Louise Francoise de la Baume le Blanc made her debut at court in 1661 and soon attracted the attention of  King Louis XIV. She became his mistress and bore him four children. However, by 1670 she had lost her place as Louis’ principal mistress, and, after recovering from a serious illness and suffering a crisis of conscience, she decided to renounce her former sinful existence. One of the results of her change of heart was her turning towards writing. In 1671 she published her Reflexions sur la misericorde de Dieu (Reflections on the mercy of God), of which we have now bought a rare English translation.  In 1674 she entered a Carmelite convent in Paris, where she remained for the rest of her life.

This particular copy has an inscription by a former owner, Maurice Paterson (1836-1917), who was the rector of Moray House in Edinburgh, then a Free Church teacher training college. It reads:

“This book belonged to and was much prized by Mrs. Scott, mother of Sir Walter Scott.

Presented by Isabella Paterson step cousin who resided with Aunt Esther who was companion of Mrs. Scott.

Esther Paterson was my father’s half sister.

M. P.”

So, this book once belonged to Anne Scott, Sir Walter Scott’s mother, and had passed into Maurice Paterson’s hands via a step-cousin!

Esther Paterson had nursed Walter Scott’s older brother John through his final illness and then became his mother’s companion for the final years of her life. Anne Scott died in 1819, and Esther Paterson presumably received this book as a token of gratitude for her work.

Walter Scott was certainly grateful to Esther, describing her as a person of ‘uncommon good sense and civility’, who was of ‘inestimable comfort’ to his dear mother.

Further reading:

Sir Walter Scott in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

H.J.C. Grierson (ed.). The letters of Sir Walter Scott, London, 1932-37. (NLS shelfmark Lit.S.25) Volumes 6 and 7 are particularly interesting here.

We’ve been fortunate recently to buy a copy of a book which appears to be the only known copy! It’s called Whiskiana, or the drunkard’s progress.  A poem. In Scottish verse (NLS shelfmark AP.1.211.06), and it was printed in Glasgow in 1812:

Whiskiana deals with the “evil of habitual intoxication”.  The author acknowledges the popular Scots poet Hector Macneill as an inspiration but remains anonymous, simply calling himself Anti-Whiskianus.

All we know about him is what he reveals about himself in the preface: he was originally from the village of Ceres in Fife. 

 The poem follows a drunkard all the way from inebriation to redemption in order to “counteract the excessive praises lavished on whisky by Burns”. I’m not sure how much Robert Burns can be blamed for excessive whisky consumption, but for Anti-Whiskianus temperance was the only solution to the problem. No half measures then!

We recently bought a collection of Scottish poems (shelfmark: RB.s.2811(1-13)) written in the late 18th century. What makes this small book so interesting is that most of the poems were either written or edited by a physician:  Andrew Duncan the elder (1744-1828).

Duncan was a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, a period which came to an end at the close of the 18th century. But he is still well known today, as the founder of two Edinburgh institutions: a dispensary for the sick poor, and a lunatic asylum where patients were treated humanely.  

Not only did Andrew Duncan write poetry, but he composed much of it in Scots! Here is the title page of the collection:

I am fascinated by the Scottish Enlightenment figures. Like David Hume, who you can read about in the previous blog, Andrew Duncan had multiple talents, and this is true for most other eminent representatives of that period. Adam Ferguson was an army chaplain and sociologist, the economist Adam Smith wrote his first book on moral sentiments, the painter Allan Ramsay of Kinkell published a book on government, the poet James MacPherson wrote a history of Great Britain, and Thomas Telford published poetry before he became famous as a civil engineer. And there are more examples like this!

Like the other Enlightenment figures, Andrew Duncan was a convivial man with great energy, and founded many clubs and societies, such as the Aesculapian Club, the Harvein, Gymnastic and Royal Caledonian Horticultural societies. His poetry, admittedly of indifferent quality, was often read out or sung at meetings of these clubs. The atmosphere in the taverns where they met must have been amazing!

You can get a great insight into the figures and achievements of the Scottish Enlightenment from our Learning Zone feature “Northern Lights“. It is particularly designed as a resource for secondary schools, but there is something in it for everybody: town planning, Ossian, Scotticisms, clubs and societies like those founded by Andrew Duncan, and the Statistical Account of Scotland.

Further reading:

Andrew Duncan the elder in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

David Hume in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Adam Ferguson in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Adam Smith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Allan Ramsay in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

James MacPherson in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Thomas Telford in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS Licensed Digital Collections)

Last December we purchased a novel by the Scottish poet and novelist Isabella Kelly, née Fordyce (1759-1857). ‘The secret’ (shelfmark: RB.s.2807-2810) is a Gothic romance, set in an ancient abbey in the imaginary village of Llanleeven in North Wales. It was published in Brentford, England, in 1805, and printed by and for P. Norbury.

Title page

Isabella was born at Cairnburgh Castle and was the youngest of three daughters of William Fordyce of Aberdeen. In 1789 she married Robert Hawke Kelly, the son of Colonel Robert Kelly of the East India Company.

She published her first book, a ‘Collection of poems and fables’ in 1794. Having suffered, in her own words, ‘a variety of domestic calamities’, she began writing Gothic fiction in order to support her two surviving children. She published her first novel, ‘Madeline’, also in 1794, and wrote nine more between 1795 and 1811. Her novels were issued through circulating libraries.

‘The secret’ opens on a dramatic note:

“The stormy blasts of December were blowing loud and fearful through the wild cloisters of a very ancient abbey; and the rain as it fell in torrents down the blackened walls, encreased the mountainous swell of a rapid river, that rushed with impetuous violence through its rocky bed, on the margin of which, in mouldering magnificence, stood the venerable fabric of Llanleeven.”

This four-volume-set is bound in half calf and marbled boards. Each volume contains the ownership inscriptions and bookplates of Sir John Thorold of Syston Park, Lincolnshire.

Further reading:

Isabella Kelly, née Fordyce (1759-1857) in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS licensed digital collections).

Music was one of the most valued tools of the early Reformers across Europe. Reformers from Luther to Coverdale insisted on the importance of singing psalms and other religious songs. Their vision was of everyone from ploughboy to housewife singing simple vernacular Scriptural songs as they went about their daily lives, in contrast both to the idea of church music consisting of polyphonic Latin texts sung by a choir, and to the popular songs of the day which they thought saw as immoral and rude.

In Scotland, this idea found expression in the book commonly known as the ‘Gude and Godly Ballatis’ (although the contemporary editions are titled Ane Compendious Booke, of Godly and Spirituall Songs), which begins with a preface hoping that these ‘spirituall sangs’ will replace ‘bawdrie and unclein sangs’, ‘specially amang yong persons’. Inside is a collection of metrical psalms, translations of Lutheran hymns, and ‘spiritual songs’ which are sung to the tunes of popular secular songs, or parody their lyrics. Love songs, for instance, are turned into songs where the ‘lover’ becomes Christ. There are also songs which reflect the turbulent times of the 1540s and 1550s, when the Protestants felt threatened by the Catholic authorities, and asserted their own independence from the Pope.

Downe be yone River I ran,
Downe be yone River I ran,
Thinkand on Christ sa fre,
That brocht me to libertie,
And I ane sinful man.

Quha suld be my lufe bot he,
That hes onlie savit me,
And be his deith me wan:
On the Croce sa cruellie,
He sched his blude aboundantlie,
And all for the lufe of man.

It is an important and popular book, everyone agrees, but one which has a somewhat mysterious story. Who compiled it, and when? And when was it first printed?

Continue reading Good and Godly Ballads

Although there was one clear moment in August 1560 when Protestantism was formally established in Scotland, it did not appear out of nowhere. As early as the 1520s, publications spreading the ideas of Luther had reached Scottish shores and were banned by Act of Parliament. Early Lutheran Protestantism in Scotland, and the Catholic church’s own attempts at reform and control, are much less familiar today than the memory of Knox and his Calvinist beliefs, so one of the things we wanted to do with this exhibition was to show the evidence for both Protestantism and Catholicism in the first half of the 16th century.

Which brings me to Patrick Hamilton. According to John Knox, the history of the Scottish Reformation began with Patrick Hamilton (c.1504-1528). Intellectually brilliant, Hamilton exemplified much about the late medieval Catholic church, and his early career is absolutely typical of many young men of his class. He was the younger son of a baronet, connected to the King himself through his mother’s family. As a younger son he was destined for the church, and as a teenager was appointed Abbot of Fearn in Ross-shire because of his noble family connections.

But Hamilton soon came under the influence of the new Lutheran ideas. He fled to Germany where he met Luther, and wrote Latin theses which clearly set out his belief in justification by faith alone. After he returned to Scotland, he was brought before the religious authorities, found guilty of heresy, and burned at the stake, still under twenty-five years old. This dramatic case brought the Protestant cause to Scottish attention.

Hamilton’s writings, however, were not published during his lifetime. Although printing had begun in Scotland in 1508, it seems to have been on hiatus during the 1520s, so his works could not have been printed in Scotland - and would probably never have been licensed by the government because they would have been seen as heretical. 

But Hamilton’s theses did reach a wider audience. The English reformer John Frith, who might have known Hamilton in Germany, was one of the many early Protestants who were influenced by them. He translated them into English under the title ‘Patrick’s Places’ (that is, ‘commonplaces’ or theses). They were published in Antwerp at a time when they would have been banned everywhere in the British Isles for their Lutheran ideas, and it is this Antwerp edition which we have displayed in our exhibition (Patrick Hamilton, [Patrick’s Places, tr. John Frith. Antwerp: S. Cock, 1531?], shelfmark Ry.III.h.37). The story of Hamilton’s life and his teachings were also spread in a book I hope to write about in more detail later on, John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.

Further Reading:

• Patrick Hamilton and John Frith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (accessible through NLS licensed digital collections)
• A nineteenth-century edition of  Patrick’s Places freely available through Google Books
• Patrick Hamilton in an online edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
• See images of the Antwerp edition of Patrick’s Places through Early English Books Online (EEBO, accessible through NLS licensed digital collections)