Robert Burns to Maria Riddell, a Lost Burns Manuscript and a Victorian Facsimile

Author(s)

Patrick Scott, University of South Carolina - Columbia
Ronnie Young, University of Glasgow

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Reviews the textual history of Robert Burns's brief letter to Maria Riddell, in spring 1795, in Dumfries, mentioning the miniature portrait by Alexander Reid; notes that the manuscript, owned in the late 19th century by Dr Thomas C.S. Corry of Belfast, and later by John Gribbel of Philadelphia, cannot now be located; and describes and illustrates the facsimile made of it in 1864 for Vincent Brooks in the Autographic Mirror, now the only source of this letter manuscript available to the Glasgow editorial team for the forthcoming Oxford edition of Burns's Correspondence.

Publication Info

Studies in Scottish Literature, Volume 48, Issue 2, 2023, pages 207-214.