Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border: [SCOTT (Walter)].

THE ORIGINAL JOHN DRINKWATER'S COPY

Consisting of Historical and Romantic Ballads, Collected in the Southern Counties of Scotland; with a few of Modern Date, Founded upon Local Tradition. In Two Volumes. Vol.I [-II].

Engraved frontispiece by Walker after Williams.

First Editions. Two volumes. 8vo. [225 x 140 x 65 mm]. [3]ff, cxxxviii, [iv], 258, [2] pp; [4]ff, 392, [2] pp. Bound in contemporary quarter sheepskin, marbled paper covered boards, the spine with five raised cords, lettered in gilt within a gilt panel in the second and numbered in the third, plain endleaves, uncut edges. (Spines dry and gilt faded, covers a little rubbed).
Kelso: printed by James Ballantyne, for T. Cadell jun. and W. Davies, Strand, London; and sold by Manners and Miller, and A. Constable, Edinburgh, 1802.

[With] Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border [....] In Three Volumes. Vol.III. Second Edition.

First Edition. 8vo. [223 x 140 x 33 mm]. [5]ff, 420, [2] pp. Uniformly bound with the above (front cover attached by tapes, cracks to spine).

Edinburgh: printed by James Ballantyne, for Longman and Rees, Pater-Noster-Row, London; and sold by Manners and Miller, and A. Constable, Edinburgh, 1803

Although it says "Second Edition" on the title this is the first.

With the half-title and errata leaf in all three volumes and a final leaf of advertisements in vol.III for The Lay of the Last Minstrel and Sir Tristrem. Sporadic light foxing, mostly in the margins. There is a squashed spider on p.300 in vol.2.

All three volumes have the bookplate and signature of John Drinkwater (1762-1844), English army officer, administrator, historian and author of A History of the late Siege of Gibraltar and A Narrative of the Battle of St. Vincent, which gave credit to the role of his friend Horatio Nelson. His wife Eleanor's brother died in 1837 and she inherited the Balfour estate in Fife, and they changed the family name to Bethune. There is a Bethune of Balfour label on the verso of the title-pages.

Stock no. ebc7827