Prose of Allan Ramsay

Rhona Brown is Professor of Scottish Textual Cultures at the University of Glasgow. Her research is focused on Scottish literature of the eighteenth century, particularly poetry in Scots, literary and cultural networks of the period and the early Scottish periodical press. She has published widely on eighteenth-century Scottish poetry and has had a particular focus the work of Robert Fergusson; her first monograph was Robert Fergusson and the Scottish Periodical Press (2012). She is an expert on the eighteenth-century periodical press, and was co-editor, with Alex Benchimol and David Shuttleton, of Before Blackwood’s: Scottish Journalism in the Age of Enlightenment (2015). Rhona is also an experienced textual editor, having edited Allan Ramsay’s Poems (2 Volumes, 2023) and co-edited, with Dr Craig Lamont, Ramsay’s Prose (2024). Craig Lamont is Lecturer in Scottish Studies at the University of Glasgow, working across Scottish Literature and Scottish History. He has worked on the Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Allan Ramsay and the Oxford Edition of the Works of Robert Burns, and has published new editions of Dorothy K. Haynes. He co-edited 1820: Scottish Rebellion, Essays on a Nineteenth-Century Insurrection (2022). His monograph The Cultural Memory of Georgian Glasgow was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2021. His chief research interests are memory, print culture, and bibliography.

In this valuable scholarly resource, Brown and Lamont have carefully gathered and edited a variety of materials (prefaces, dedications, pamphlets, unpublished letters, business accounts and even a rebus) to shed new light on Ramsay’s central role as a complex cultural figure and entrepreneur in the newly created nation of Great Britain.

• Acknowledgements AbbreviationsGeneral Editor’s Preface Biography of Allan Ramsay Introduction to ProseTEXTList of Letters Letters Miscellaneous Prose Advertisement, The Battel (1716) Preface, Tartana (1718) Dedication and Advertisement, Christ’s Kirk on the Green (Edinburgh: William Adams, 1718) Advertisement, Christ’s Kirk on the Green (Edinburgh: Ruddiman, 1718) Dedication, Robert, Richy and Sandy (1721) Advertisement, Poems (1721) Advertisement 2, Poems (1721) Dedication and Preface, Poems (1721) List of Fables (c.1722) Advertisement, Fables and Tales (1722) Preface, The Fair Assembly (1723) Dedication, ‘The Pleasures of Improvments in Agriculture Plant Gard’ (1723) Dedication and Preface, The Ever Green (1724) Preface, The Gentle Shepherd (1725) Some Few Hints In Defence of Dramatical Entertainments (c.1728) Dedication, Poems (1728) Preface, Tea-Table Miscellany (Dublin, 1729) A Collection of Scots Proverbs, More Complete and Correct than Any Heretofore Published (1737) Notes on Sir David Lindsay’s Language (1724–43) Notes on Theatre in Edinburgh (c. early 1730s)Undated Prose The Court Notes on The Fair Quaker of Deal Notes on The Doating Lovers Notes on The Basset Table Notes on The Artful Husband Notes on The ApparitionAppendix 1: Habberdashery account of Allan Ramsay to Sir Robert Menzies (1718) Appendix 2: Deed of Corporation of the Edinburgh Academy of St. Luke (1729) Appendix 3: The Ramsay and Cooper Rebus (c.1725–38) NOTESLetters Miscellaneous Prose Undated Prose Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Appendix 3Glossary Bibliography