Ralph McLean, Manuscripts Curator (Long 18th Century Collections), writes: The National Library of Scotland was successful in obtaining four letters and a poem of Robert Burns. The purchases were made with help from Friends of the National Libraries and the Soutar Trust.
The purchases comprise the following manuscripts:
Burns to Thomas Sloan. This letter is enclosed in a 1787 edition of Burns’s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The volume also contains letters relating to Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe and Robert Chambers (both of whom are also represented in the Library’s collections). It was sold at Sotheby’s in 1891 and part of it was copied before appearing in the Burns Chronicle in 1894.
Burns to David Staig. It was originally published in J. DeLancey Ferguson’s Letters of Robert Burns (1931). However, it was taken from a transcript of the original letter. It has remained in private ownership since then, and this will be the first time that the letter has been made publicly available.
Burns to Captain Francis Grose. This is the covering letter that Burns sent to Grose along with the poem “Tam O’Shanter”, although the poem no longer accompanies the letter. The letter was listed as being in private ownership in G. Ross Roy’s Letters (1985) before being sold at Christie’s in 2014.
Part of sonnet of Robert Burns. This contains nine lines of the sonnet that Burns composed for his friend Robert Riddell of Glenriddell on Riddell’s death in 1794. It was originally published in the Dumfries Journal (1794) but this version contains a few variants and evidence of the poet’s re-working of the manuscript.
Burns to James Smith. The letter discusses Burns’s future wife Jean Armour at a time when he was about to emigrate to Jamaica. The letter was once part of the sale of John Gribbel’s manuscripts (it was Gribbel who donated the Glenriddell MSS to what was to become the National Library of Scotland) and was listed as being in private ownership in Roy’s Letters (1985).
The Library has an established collecting interest in Robert Burns as one of the key literary figures of 18th-century Scotland and a poet with a global reputation. It has one of the most comprehensive collections of Burns manuscripts to be found anywhere in the world, and the addition of these manuscripts greatly complements our collections. As most of these manuscripts (Acc.14167-14171) have not been seen since at least the 1930s their addition to the Library’s collections are timely both to recent scholarly projects, which seek to bring out new editions of Burns’s works, but also to the wider public, as a recent report to the Scottish government highlighted the impact of Burns to the Scottish economy. We are very grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for helping us to purchase these manuscripts for the National Library of Scotland.
Link to catalogue entry
