The Prose of Allan Ramsay

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).