New acquisitions in British Romanticism

Among the recent acquisitions made for the Robert Burns Collection and Rowe Collection of William Wordsworth are two first editions of famous works of English Romanticism.

Pictured is the first volume of The Scots Musical Museum, a collection of Scottish folk songs published 1787-1803.  Burns collaborated with Edinburgh music publisher James Johnson to gather songs for the collection, and he contributed a number of his own lyrics as well, including famous songs like “Ye Banks and Braes of Bonnie Doon” and “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton.” The first two volumes of The Scots Musical Museum were recently added to the Burns Collection. It is quite difficult to find complete sets of the six volume collection.

Another famous piece acquired by Special Collections is this first edition of Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), a satirical poem attacking critics of his first book of poetry as well as Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge. The book was previously owned by a Captain Hyde Parker — most likely  Hyde Parker III, who commanded a British ship during the War of 1812 and later serves as head of the Royal Navy.