The Prose of Allan Ramsay - (Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Works of Allan Ramsay) by Rhona Brown & Craig Lamont (Hardcover)

About the Book

Provides the first reliable textual edition of all extant prose writings by Allan Ramsay

Book Synopsis

Transforming academic and popular understanding of this pivotal but, until now, largely under-researched literary figure, this volume offers the first full and consistent edition of Allan Ramsay's prose. The volume contains all extant prose writings, from both manuscript and print sources. As well as all known letters, the volume includes prefaces, dedications and advertisements for Ramsay's major collections. It also contains Ramsay's anonymously-published Some Few Hints in Defence of Dramatical Entertainments, the full text of his influential collection of Scots Proverbs and significant prose from manuscript sources, including Ramsay's account of Edinburgh's Porteous Riots in April 1736 and notes on contemporary plays. In these works, we see Ramsay's consistent and steadfast commitment to preserving Scottish literary culture, and gain a privileged insight into Ramsay's personality, his priorities, ambitions and core beliefs.

From the Back Cover

The Edinburgh edition of The Collected Works of Allan Ramsay Murray Pittock, General Editor In Enlightenment Edinburgh, Allan Ramsay (c. 1684-1758) was a foundationally important poet, dramatist, song collector, theatre owner, cultural leader in art and music and innovative entrepreneur in many spheres from language to libraries. This series, the result of an international research project, presents Ramsay's complete works in a dependable scholarly edition for the first time, thereby illuminating a body of work crucial in its own right and essential to both the Scottish Enlightenment and the Vernacular Revival associated with Fergusson, Burns and others. [headline]Provides the first reliable textual edition of all extant prose writings by Allan Ramsay Transforming academic and popular understanding of this pivotal but, until now, largely under-researched literary figure, this volume offers the first full and consistent edition of Allan Ramsay's prose. The volume contains all extant prose writings, from both manuscript and print sources. As well as all known letters, the volume includes prefaces, dedications and advertisements for Ramsay's major collections. It also contains Ramsay's anonymously-published Some Few Hints in Defence of Dramatical Entertainments, the full text of his influential collection of Scots Proverbs and significant prose from manuscript sources, including Ramsay's account of Edinburgh's Porteous Riots in April 1736 and notes on contemporary plays. In these works, we see Ramsay's consistent and steadfast commitment to preserving Scottish literary culture, and gain a privileged insight into Ramsay's personality, his priorities, ambitions and core beliefs. [bios]Rhona Brown is Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Literature and the Periodical Press at the University of Glasgow, UK. She specialises in eighteenth-century Scots language poetry and the history of the periodical press in Scotland. She is author of Robert Fergusson and the Scottish Periodical Press (2012) and co-editor of Before Blackwood's: Scottish Journalism in the Age of Enlightenment (2015). Brown is also editor of Ramsay's Poems (2023) for The Collected Works of Allan Ramsay. Craig Lamont is Lecturer in Scottish Studies at the University of Glasgow, UK. He specialises in print culture, textual editing and memory studies across a range of Scottish subjects and writers. Lamont is author of The Cultural Memory of Georgian Glasgow (2021), co-editor of The Scottish Rebellion: Insurrection 1820 (2022), and co-editor of Allan Ramsay's Future: Studies in Scottish Literature (2020).

Review Quotes

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.

--Leith Davis, Simon Fraser University

About the Author

Rhona Brown is Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Scottish Literature and the Periodical Press at the University of Glasgow. She specialises in eighteenth-century Scots language poetry and the history of the periodical press in Scotland, as well as in eighteenth-century club culture. Brown is author of Robert Fergusson and the Scottish Periodical Press (2012) and co-editor of Before Blackwood's: Scottish Journalism in the Age of Enlightenment (2015), and she has published widely on eighteenth-century Scottish literature and journalism. In the Collected Works of Allan Ramsay series, Brown is editor of a two-volume edition of Ramsay's Poems (2023), and she is co-editor of the Oxford University Press edition of Robert Burns's Correspondence.

Craig Lamont is Lecturer in Scottish Studies at the University of Glasgow. He specialises in print culture, textual editing, and memory studies across a range of Scottish subjects and writers. Lamont is author of The Cultural Memory of Georgian Glasgow (2021), co-editor of The Scottish Rebellion: Insurrection 1820 (2022), and co-editor of Allan Ramsay's Future: Studies in Scottish Literature (2020). He has published on Scottish literature, bibliography, and memory studies, and he is co-editor of the Oxford University Press edition of Robert Burns's Correspondence.