[BURNS, ROBERT] — ALEXANDER ROSS | Helenore, or The fortunate shepherdess, a poem, in the broad scotch dialect... Aberdeen: Printed by J. Chalmers and Co., 1778

[BURNS, ROBERT] — ALEXANDER ROSS

Helenore, or The fortunate shepherdess, a poem, in the broad scotch dialect... Aberdeen: Printed by J. Chalmers and Co., 1778

8vo (6 x 3 3/4 in.; 154 x 95 mm). Ownership signature to title, glossary explaining provincial words at end; I2 with small hole repaired with loss of one letter, minor and infrequent foxing. Contemporary full brown calf, spine with raised bands in six compartments; overall rubbed, upper joint splitting but holding. Custom green morocco slipcase. 

Robert Burns's copy

Alexander Ross was born into a farming family in Aberdeenshire. He became a headmaster, and frequently wrote verse for his own amusement. In praise of Ross's work, Burns wrote: "There is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which his Grace, old venerable Skinner, the author of Tullochgorum and etc., and the late Ross at Lochlee, of true Scottish poetic memory, are the only modern instances that I recollects , since Ramsay, with his contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson, went to the world of deathless existence and truly immortal song."

The present volume also bears the ownership inscription of Helen D'Arcy Stewart, and the bookplate of James Curle. Helen D'Arcy Stewart was a Scottish poet, and wife of Dugald Stewart, an influential Scottish philosopher and mathematician, who was best known for popularizing the Scottish Enlightenment. D'Arcy Stewart moved in the literary and intellectual circles of the period, and was intimate friends with Sir Walter Scott. Robert Burns deemed her poem "The tears I shed must ever fall" a "song of genius," and supplied the initial four lines for the final stanza. James Curle, a solicitor from Melrose, rose to prominence as an archaeologist around 1905, when he unearthed a trove of Roman artefacts at Trimontium, which was a marching camp during the invasion of what is now Scotland by Julius Agricola around 80AD. The manner in which Curle interpreted his findings changed the face of Scottish archaeology.

A remarkable and rare association copy, with provenance related to some of Scotland's most celebrated figures

PROVENANCE

Robert Burns (ownership signature to title) — Helen D'Arcy Stewart (ownership inscription to front pastedown) — James Curle (bookplate to front pastedown)