Beschreibung:

AUTOGRAPH REVISED MANUSCRIPT OF THE FIRST FIVE STANZAS OF HIS POEM 'ROBERT BURNS', 30 lines in five six-line stanzas (the printed version has nine stanzas), with substantive autograph revisions and deletions in the fourth stanza preserving reconsidered readings, inscribed on the following page for Ian Maclaren 'in memory of pleasant hours in the Glen', signed by Alice M. Longfellow, Edith Longfellow Dana and Annie Longfellow Thorp, the poet's three daughters, 2 pages, quarto, bound with numerous blanks by Fazakerley of Liverpool, full brown morocco, not dated I see amid the fields of Ayr A ploughman, who, in foul and fair, Sings at his task So clear, we know not if it is The laverock's song we hear, or his, Nor care to ask... A RARE REVISED POETICAL MANUSCRIPT BY LONGFELLOW. This is the only revised manuscript by Longfellow to be available to collectors in forty years at least; all Longfellow manuscripts that have been available are entirely fair copies (usually four lines only). The discarded lines appear not to have been published. 'Ian Maclaren' was the pen name of Rev. John Watson (1850-1907), which he used for his romantic stories of small town life in Scotland. He died in America where he was Lyman Beecher lecturer at Yale University; he would have met Longfellow at the meetings of the Broad Church party in Harvard. The main collection of Longfellow's manuscripts is at Harvard. PROVENANCE: Longfellow's daughters; Ian Maclaren (Rev. John Watson ; David Lowenherz. REFERENCE: Nicholl William Roberston, 'Ian Maclaren', The Life of Rev. John Watson 1908.