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. […]
Tag: Scottish authors
More Scott for Russians
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, […]
Scott for Young Russians
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 […]
A Previously Loved Book
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 […]
Temperance is the only solution!
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 […]
A man of many talents in the Scottish Enlightenment
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 […]
A Gothic Romance
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 […]