< Back

[Scott, Walter].
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: consisting of historical and romantic Ballads, collected in the Southern counties of Scotland; with a few of modern date, founded upon local tradition.
Publisher: printed by James Ballantyne, for Longman and Rees; and sold by Manners and Miller, and A. Constable, Edinburgh;
Date of Publication: 1803
Stock Code: 15643
Second edition, first impression of 1000 copies only, after the first of 1802. Demy octavo. Three volumes, pp., [12], clxviii, 291, [1] blank; [viii], 426; [vi], 420. With all the half-titles. Uniform contemporary polished calf; spines on five raised bands; titled and ornamented in gilt to spines; gilt roll and triple fillet border to boards; gilt dentelles; gilt fillets to edges of boards; all edges marbled; marbled end-papers; sea-green silk place-markers. Spade-shield armorial bookplate of one John Maude to front paste-down of each volume; Maude’s inscription in ink to initial blank of each volume; inscription of one Lucy Oswald of Edinburgh to front free-endpaper of vol. I. Corners slightly bumped; very slight surface scuffs to leather; joints slightly worn but holding very well. Light scattered foxing to first leaves of each volume; light toning to margins only. A bright, handsome set. Scott’s ‘first significant publication’ which ‘generally defined his lifetime performance’ (Todd and Bowden, p. 1). Scott’s literary anthology of Scottish language and song entered a vernacular vocabulary to the printed record that was previously only recorded in oral or ephemeral sources. Published only a year after the initial printing, this second edition added thirty-four ballads. Of the eleven new ‘Imitations’ in vol. III, four are first printings of compositions by Scott. A handsome copy in well-preserved contemporary binding. £400.00