POEMS, CHIEFLY IN THE SCOTTISH DIALECT (BINDINGS - PUBLISHER'S BOARDS). SHIRREFS, ANDREW Bindings - 18th century,Poetry

227 x 143 mm. (9 x 5 1/2"). xxviii, [ii], xv-xxvii, [2], 30-365, [1], 41, [1] pp. ORIGINAL PUBLISHER'S BOARDS with cream paper back, manuscript title on spine in a contemporaneous hand, all edges UNTRIMMED. Housed in a very good blue cloth folding box, black morocco label with gilt lettering on spine. With frontispiece portrait. Title page with ink ownership signatures of Anne Brodie (see below) and Hugh Rose. ESTC T95205. Joints with subtle separation but the boards firmly attached, corners and bottom edges a little rubbed (as expected), contents with trivial imperfections only (a couple isolated faint stains, thumb-soiling, a few rough openings, etc.), but A VERY FINE UNSOPHISTICATED COPY that is unusually bright and clean internally. Still in its original boards, this book of poems by a bookseller and printer once belonged to a Scottish gentlewoman who subscribed for four copies. Born in Aberdeen, Andrew Shirrefs (ca. 1762 - ca. 1807), began writing poetry as a boy--our volume contains "A Christmas Feast," written when he was 13--and hoped for a scholarly career. Changing occupational paths, he turned to bookselling (fools were born everywhere!), although he continued to write plays and verses. His best-known work is "Jamie and Bess," a pastoral comedy first produced in 1787, which occupies the first half of our volume. It is followed by poems written on a wide range of topics among them a crutch he used to walk and a letter to his lawyer about a shop bill all composed in the Scottish dialect made famous by Robert Burns. The lengthy subscriber list includes "Miss Brodie of Lethen," who requested four copies. The eldest daughter of Scottish politician Alexander Brodie, Anne Brodie (1755-1805) lived in the family seat, Lethen House in Nairn. Her younger sister Sophie was also a subscriber, as was her relation James Brodie of Brodie, chief of their clan. Apart from writing "Shirrefs Poems" on the spine of this book, Miss Brodie and her successors made no change to the volume and read it with care, leaving it little changed from the day it arrived at Lethen House.