"I LOCK'D HER IN MY FOND EMBRACE; HER HEART WAS BEATING RARELY: MY BLESSINGS ON THAT HAPPY PLACE, AMONG THE RIGS O' BARLEY!": FIRST EDINBURGH EDITION OF BURNS' POEMS

BURNS, Robert. Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. Edinburgh: Printed for the Author, and Sold by William Creech, 1787. Octavo, period-style full tan tree calf, gilt-decorated spine and boards, red morocco spine label, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $9000.

1787 first Edinburgh edition, rare first issue, of the work which established Burns as the national poet of Scotland, preceded only by the extremely scarce Kilmarnock 1786 first edition of only 612 copies, of which only about a dozen are thought to be in private collections.

When Burns' Poems first appeared in 1786, "it received the praise of both the critics and the public, [and] established Robert Burns as the national poet of Scotland. To the book-collector, as one of the 'Grolier Hundred,' it has been among the immortals. To the lover of poetry it will always be the sine qua non of a Burns collection. Snyder writes of this edition, 'it is perhaps fair to say that the literary historian will search the annals of English poetry long and hard before finding many other first volumes which so unmistakably announce the advent of a great and original genius.' [In 1786] Burns, discouraged amorously and economically, had decided to leave for self-imposed exile to Jamaica, but planned before he departed to have his poems printed (in order to obtain passage money). His hopes of success were small, but the enthusiasm of his friends and patrons obtained a number of subscribers. His actual success was phenomenal; he rose from the status of a versifying Ayrshire ploughman to that of the unofficial laureate of Scotland… Burns not only changed his mind about emigrating, but resolved to print a second enlarged edition of his poems at Edinburgh" (Rosenbach 46:8). Published only one year after the Kilmarnock edition and with 22 additional poems not in that edition. The number of subscriptions for this edition was large enough to require the printer to reset and reprint most of the 51 gatherings; this copy is from the first issue, with "Boxburgh" for "Roxburgh" on p. xxxvii; page 232 correctly numbered, and "skinking" correctly spelled on page 263. Bound with half title and portrait frontispiece. Gibson, 5. Rothschild 556. See PMM 231. Armorial bookplate of William Menzies, with the crest of the Menzies clan that was preserved along with the red morocco spine label from the previous binding. With textual elisions completed in a contemporary hand.

Text about-fine, beautifully rebound to style.