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BURNS, ROBERT Complete Writings, TheThe Works of the "Heaven-taught Ploughman" A Finely Bound Set of the Most Complete Edition BURNS, Robert. The Complete Writings of Robert Burns. With an essay on Burns’s life, genius, and achievement by W.E. Henley and with an introduction by John Buchan. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1926-1927. Large-Paper Edition [de Luxe]. One of 750 numbered copies of the American issue, out of a total edition of 1,000 copies. Ten octavo volumes (8 11/16 x 5 15/16 inches; 221 x 150 mm.). Photogravure frontispieces and plates, mostly from photographs by Charles S. Olcott. This Edition de Luxe with twenty extra illustrations by Charles S. Olcott, of which ten are hand-colored frontispieces and ten are photographs from the original negatives. Bound at the Riverside Press ca. 1926 in three-quarter navy blue morocco gilt over blue cloth boards ruled in gilt. Spines with five raised bands, decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, others uncut, pale blue endpapers. Spines very slightly and uniformly sunned, former owner’s ink inscription on front fly-leaf. A fine set. "The present edition of the Complete Writings of Robert Burns consists of six volumes of Poems, with bibliographical sketch, notes, glossary, and indexes, and four volumes of Burns's Correspondence. It contains a very considerable amount of hitherto uncollected matter, both in verse and in prose, including much that has never been published elsewhere. The text of the Poems, with the exception of those hitherto uncollected, is that of the Centenary Edition, edited by William Ernest Henley and Thomas F. Henderson and published in 1896, and the notes are also by Henley and Henderson as abridged and adapted for use in the Cambridge Edition, which was published in 1897 by special arrangement with Messrs. T.C. & E.C. Jack, of Edinburgh, the British publishers of the Centenary. The Poems are preceded by Mr. Henley's brilliant essay on the Life, Genius, and Achievement of Burns, which made a profound impression on the original publication thirty years ago and which remains the most scholarly and penetrating criticism of the man and the poet that has yet appeared. "The publishers count themselves fortunate also in having secured a general Introduction for this edition from the well-known novelist, historian, and critic John Buchan, who is admirably equipped to set forth the present position of Burns in literature and the view of his life and work taken by recent critics. "Most of the new matter contained in this edition has come through the researches of Mr. J.C. Ewing, of Glasgow, an Honorary Vice-President of the Burns Federation and editor of the Burns Chronicle, and well known as an expert on Burns manuscripts. A prefatory note to the Letters of Burns will appear in Volume Vll of this edition and will make all necessary explanations as to the prose part of the writings. "It remains only to make mention of the illustrations, all of which have been planned and arranged by Mr. Charles S. Olcott and most of which are from photographs made by him during a thorough exploration of the Burns country undertaken for this express purpose in the summer of 1926" (Publishers' note in volume one). "When Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect appeared in 1786 it was an immediate success. Burns found himself feted by the literary and aristocratic society of Edinburgh, not only for his poetic skills but because he appeared, in Mackenzie's words, as 'a heaven-taugh ploughman. His attractive appearance and his gregarious temperament led him into a life of dissipation and amorous complexity" (OCEL). Egerer 965.
Offered for US$ 2500.00 by: David Brass Rare Books (ABAA/ILAB) - Book number: 01348