I wanted to have a comprehensive Burns collection to refer to as he’s so intrinsic now to Scottish tradition and culture. This was the set I decided upon and while the spines have been mistreated and the pages tanned in places the information’s all present which is all that matters to us here at RSH.
This collection is uploaded today as it’s Burns’ Night and information is therefore required for the occasion. It’s fantastically detailed with notes on all the poems and coloured prints throughout. What it doesn’t contain, which is maybe strange, is the ‘Burns/Selkirk Grace‘. Now in the prologues it’s mentioned that there have been several eminent institutions involved in the compilation of this collection:
As regards this First Volume, it remains for them to express their gratitude to Dr. Garnett, C.B., of the British Museum, for that help no man of letters ever asks in vain; to Mr. Clark, of the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh; to Mr. Hugh A. Webster, of the University Library, Edinburgh; to Mr. Barrett, of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow; to Mr. James L. Caw, of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh; to Mr. Andrew Macdonald, Glasgow, for the use of a capital set of Ramsay chap-books; to Mr. R. T. Hamilton Bruce, Edinburgh, for the use of a unique and precious copy of the garland known as The Merry Muses of Caledonia and the set of chap-books hereafter referred to as the Motherwell Collection; and to Mr. Walter Raleigh, Liverpool, and Mr. James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, London, for assistance in tracing the life of Burns’s favourite stave from its beginnings in Provence to its earliest known appearance in Scots verse.
To me this suggests that maybe it wasn’t one of Burns’ creations as I can find no trace or mention of it in any of the indexes to the four volumes. There’s an index specifically for the first lines of everything in the fourth volume and it’s not present. The collection cover poems, satires and verses, Notes and Epistles, Theatrical Pieces, Political Pieces, Miscellanies, Fragments, Epigrams, Graces (of which there are only two, see below), and Epitaphs, so they’ve really covered their bases.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vols.1-4, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Spines.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vols.1-4, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Front Cover.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vol.1, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Frontispiece.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vol.1, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Publisher’s Page.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vol.1, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Portrait of Burns.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vol.2, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Frontispiece.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vol.2, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Publisher’s Page.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vol.3, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Frontispiece.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vol.3, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Publisher’s Page.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vol.4, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Frontispiece.
W. F. Henley & T. F. Henderson (1896), ‘Poetry of Robert Burns’, Centenary Edition, Vol.4, London: Caxton Publishing Co., Publisher’s Page.
