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Brockie, William, Lucas, Joseph & Stuart, Charles.
The Gypsies of Yetholm: Historical, Traditional, Philogical, and Humorous [with] The Yetholm History of the Gypsies [and] David Blythe the Gipsy King A Character Sketch.
Publisher: J & J H Rutherford, Kelso;
Date of Publication: 1884
Stock Code: 11103
Three works bound together in one volume. Octavo. “Gypsies”: pp., vii, [1], 192, with frontispiece engraving of James Allan the Northumberland Piper and 2 plates; “Yetholm History” pp., [6], 152, [8] publishers’ catalogue, [4] blank, [2] ads, with original photographic frontispiece of Esther Faa Blyth, engraving of Kirk Yetholm and fold-out dialects chart; “David Blythe” pp., 27, 7 publishers’ catalogue, [2] blank, 16 second catalogue, with captioned frontispiece photograph of David Blythe. Publishers’ emerald green cloth with gilt titles and decoration to spine and decorative border in blind to boards. Canary yellow endpapers. A hand-written biography of Brockie copied from “The Monthly Chronicle of North Country Lore and Legend” loosely laid-in. Slight wear at spine tips and corners, and spine a little toned. Endpapers toned, with ownership inscriptions to front free endpaper with addresses, in ink and initials to first title-page; a little scattered foxing, mainly to prelims and final catalogue. Text-block cracked at Contents of “Yetholm History” but firmly holding. A very good copy. Locally published at Kelso in the Borders, Brockie’s subject matter is the history of the Faas, Youngs and associated gypsy families centred around Kirk Yetholm from the seventeenth century, while the focus of Lucas’ work is the language that they used and Stuart’s work is a biography of the “Gipsy King” David Blythe (1795-1883). All three works are rare and were published separately but issued here by Rutherford as a triptych and together they form the principle repository of our knowledge of the Border gypsy families. The association of the families with Yetholm traditionally springs from a gypsy called Young who saved the life of Captain David Bennet at the siege of Namur; in gratitude Bennet built cottages and granted rights to the gypsy families at his home village of Kirk Yetholm. Rare. £350.00