Author: KAMES (Henry Home, Lord). TYTLER (Alexander Fraser):
Title: Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Honourable Henry Home of Kames. Containing Sketches of the Progress of Literature and General Improvement in Scotland during the Greater Part of the Eighteenth Century.
Description: Edinburgh: Printed for William Creech; and T. Cadell and W. Davies, London, 1807. FIRST EDITION. 2 volumes. 4to, pp. xvi, 329 [330 blank], 105 [106 blank, 107 "To the Binder," 108 blank]; xi [xii blank], 253 [254 blank], 163 [164 errata], including half-title in each volume, engraved portrait (slightly spotted and off-setting on title) of Kames in volume 1, 2 engraved plates of hand-writing in volume 2, recently rebound in quarter calf, morocco labels, marbled boards. Tytler's biography of Kames is a curiously common book, given that only 750 copies of the first edition were printed, and it did not sell well. Tytler (who was created Lord Woodhouselee in 1802) persuaded the publishers to produce another edition, which appeared in 1814, after Tytler's death in 1813. When no reviews of the work had appeared, Kames wrote to the publishers on 21 October 1808 (ms. letter in NLS) asking them to send copies to the Critical Review and the Monthly Review, with his compliments. The Critical Review devoted 28 pages to it in January and February, 1809, concluding that "it contains a great variety of important matter; and...those who will read it through with as much attention as we have done, will find it a reservoir of much instruction and amusement." The Monthly Review detected an "air of pomposity" in it but praised it for its "variety of curious facts concerning the progress of literature in Scotland."

Keywords: biography philosophy prose Scottish Enlightenment


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