Author: HENRYSON (Robert). LAING (David), editor:
Title: The Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson, Now First Collected with Notes, and a Memoir of his Life. By David Laing.
Description: Edinburgh: William Paterson, Princes Street, 1865. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 195 x 115 mms., pp. lx, 331 [332 blank], including half-title, title-page in red and black, handsomely bound in full straight grain contemporary panelled in gilt morocco, spine ornately gilt in compartments, black leather label, top edge gilt; front joint very slightly rubbed, corners slightly worn, but a very good to fine copy, with the bookplate of W.O. Callender on the front paste-down end-paper. Henryson (died c. 1490) was probably the first poet from Scotland to achieve recognition beyond a small group of people in Scotland. A later Scottish poet, Gavin Douglas (d. 1522) published a translation of the AEnid, the first in Scotland, and he makes a complimentraru reference to one of Henryson's first poems, Orpheus. Alas for Scottish poetical achievements: Henryson's very fine poem, The Testament of Cresseid, was was included as Chaucer's work in William Thynne's London edition of Chaucer of 1532 and often subsequently. John MacQueen in his masterly entry for Henryson in ODNB, notes that, "The Testament of Cresseid heightens the tragedy of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, on which at the same time it makes an oblique comment. Its 616 lines contrast with Chaucer's 8239. Cresseid's suffering is subjected to profound but sympathetic moral analysis, some, as in her trial before the planetary gods, at once allegorical and vivid." The antiquary and librarian David Laing (1793–1878) was the first scholar to treat Henryson's texts with learning, acuity, and sensitivity.

Keywords: poetry binding Scottish


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