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The '1827' Edition of Robert Burns's
Merry Muses of Caledonia
By
G. Ross Roy
Like a good deal of erotic writing, The
Merry Muses of Caledonia, which contains
poems and songs by Robert Burns, has a
history which is difficult to trace. Until
very recently many libraries did not list the
work in their public catalogues and
scholars frequently had difficulty seeing
copies of the work. It had been known as
early as 1800 that Burns had made a
collection of these poems. When James
Currie published The Works of Robert
Burns in 1800 he included a letter to John
M'Murdo in which the poet mentions
sending him the only copy he had of the
MS which was to be published as The
Merry Muses; Burns added, 'I should be
sorry that any unfortunate negligence
should deprive me of what has cost me a
good deal of pains.—'1 All early editions of
Burns's letters contain the sentence 'A
very few of them are my own' which was
Currie's fabrication, doubtless intended to
exonerate Burns from the responsibility of
having written pornographic poems and
songs. Since the date of The Merry Muses
was established as 1799, I have been
convinced that Currie knew of its pub-
lication and so tampered with the text of
the letter to M'Murdo in his edition of
1800, rather than to omit the letter alto-
gether, something he not infrequently did
when he felt that the text was too personal.
In 1911 an edition of The Merry Muses
was 'Printed and published under the
auspices of the Burns Federation. For
subscribers only. Not for sale'; we also
read on the title page that the edition is 'A
Vindication of Robert Burns in connection
with the above publication [The Merry
and the spurious editions which
succeeded it.' The editor, Duncan
McNaught (at the time also Editor of the
Burns Chronicle), was unwilling to admit
to his editorship, signing the 'Introduction
and Corrective' just Vindex. It is not
important to know whether McNaught
knew that Currie had falsified the letter to
M'Murdo, but it is interesting to see that as
late as 1911 there were those who would
not admit that Burns had written erotic
poetry. A footnote to McNaught's edition:
he had printed up an additional leaf (pp.
137-8) to his edition containing an explicit
description of Burns's fornicating with
Jean Armour (not yet his wife) but ap-
parently thought better of including it in
the book, and so it was cancelled.2
Incidentally, the letter had already been
published in the spurious editions of 1827.
In his introduction McNaught drew
attention to this so-called 1827 edition,
without questioning the date of
publication, although anyone familiar with
nineteenth-century book production would
have known that the paper was certainly
not of as early a date as that. In 1965 G.
Legman published a useful edition of The
Merry Muses in a type facsimile of the 1799
edition with notes and a bibliography of
the '1827' edition.3 He points out that the
first concrete evidence we have of the date
of this edition is the accession date of a
copy in the British Library, 6th April 1881.
If we accept the date of publication as
1872, it is not surprising that it took nine
years before the British Library acquired a
32
copy; no serious attempt was made at that
time to acquire 'indecent' books, and the
printer or publisher would certainly not
have deposited a copy as the law required.
In all Legman lists a total of sixteen
editions. Not all of these editions claim to
have been printed in 1827; later editions
merely reprint the contents of the earlier
editions—the two 1962 editions, for in-
stance, contain only eighteen of the eighty-
two poems in the original and claim,
somewhat ambiguously, only to be a
'selection' whereas the 1827 edition is
called a 'collection'.
The contents of the 1827 edition are
based on editions of c 1830 and 1843 except
that the English folk-songs have been
'ruthlessly revised and vulgarised' as
Legman puts it.4 Oddly enough the
Scottish material was left pretty much as it
had appeared in earlier editions.
The text of the 1827 editions begins with
a 3-page Preface which was reprinted in all
subsequent editions. The text commences
with songs known to be by Burns, some of
them reworkings by the poet of older
material. The first song is The Ranting
Dog the Daddy o't,' a song first published
in volume three of James Johnson's The
Scots Musical Museum (1790) where it is
listed as 'old verses, with corrections or
additions'. This song and the next two in
the 1827 edition are noted to be by Burns
'In his published works'. This may have
been a ploy to imply the legitimacy of the
remainder of the selections. There follow
works which are now admitted to the
canon as well as more dubious works, but
which were known to the poet. 'Andrew
and his Cutty Gun', for instance, was
called by Burns 'the work of a Master'5
quite possibly referring to the text as it
appears in The Merry Muses credited as
being 'perhaps' by Burns.
'Act of Sederunt of the Court of Session'
follows with this odd note: 'Probably by
Burns, but doubtful'. It is, of course,
known to be by the poet who sent it in a
letter to Robert Cleghorn on 25th October
[1793?].
c
About half the book is filled with
Scottish songs, so indicated; there follow
'English' songs, although the second of
these is 'Una's Lock', which Burns called 'a
blackguard Irish song'6 adding that he had
'often regretted the want of decent verses'
to the air. Burns's 'decent' lines were 'She
Says she Loves me Best of a' (Sae flaxen
were her ringlets). Five Irish songs are
followed by two pages of 'Toasts and
Sentiments'. The 1827 edition claims that
this 'completes the Merry Muses, as origin-
ally collected by Burns', a statement which
was pure fantasy; there is no evidence
whatever that Burns collected or knew of
many of the songs in the collection, nor did
he, as far as is known, ever collect toasts.
There follows one of the most interesting
items in the collection—the two texts of
'John Anderson, My Jo', where the earlier
erotic version is claimed to have been
taken from a 'song-book' of 1782 (perhaps
a chapbook, if the statement is true).7
Following this is the famous letter from
Burns to Robert Ainslie of 3rd March 1788
in which he describes in graphic detail how
he had made love to Jean Armour upon his
return to Mauchline, an event, if we are to
believe the date, which occurred about a
week before Jean gave birth to his twins.
(This is the letter, mentioned above, which
McNaught printed and then withdrew from
his edition of The Merry Muses of 1911.)
I have never understood why the next
letter was included in The Merry Muses at
all. It is to James Johnson dated 25th May
1788 and had been published by Robert
Chambers in 18568 and has no erotic
content at all—it speaks of Burns's concern
over his publisher William Creech's failure
to settle accounts, and goes on to tell
Johnson that he has married Jean. Al-
though Chambers did excise a few words
from the text (such as the poet's statement
that he had given to Jean 'the best blood in
my body, and so farewell Rakery!') the
deletions were not such as to warrant the
inclusion of the letter in The Merry Muses.
The final item in the collection, which
was written by Burns in 1786 for the
33
Tarbolton Bachelors' Club, is entitled
'Libel Summons', although it has been
more frequently published under the title
The Fornicator's Court'; it has also been
called 'The Court of Equity'. This is the
title given to it in the best collation of the
printed versions of the poem which was
privately printed in 1910, edited by D.R.,
but which I suspect may have been Duncan
McNaught. The collation includes earlier
printings of the poem, including an edition
of 1899 which I have not seen, but which
D.R. claims includes variorum readings
from all three known MSS. More readily
available is James Kinsley's Oxford edi-
tion, The Poems and Songs of Robert
Burns (1968), which again supplies the
variants in the MSS which are all in the
British Library. Of these the fullest version
comprises 160 lines, another is incomplete
consisting of the first part of the poem only
(both of these are in the Egerton Collec-
tion), the third MS (in the Hastie
Collection) omits lines 99-158, but is
nevertheless complete as a poem. It is
apparently from the Hastie MS that the
1827 text was taken and it agrees with
Kinsley's publication of it, with the excep-
tion of minor changes in capitalisation,
spelling and punctuation.
Collation of the various editions of the
1827 Merry Muses is made difficult by the
scarcity of copies of any of them, with the
result that they cannot normally be
borrowed on inter-library loan, and since
almost all the title pages contain identical
wording it is impossible to determine
without physical examination when one
copy differs from another. Recognising
this, I thought that it would be useful to
reproduce the title page in addition to
giving the pagination and other methods of
distinguishing the editions. I have followed
Legman's tentative dating, although like
him I recognise that any of the editions
studied may have been printed several
years earlier than the date assigned. Most
of the dates are those of accession in
libraries but, as was mentioned, the nature
of the contents made it unlikely that a
deposit copy would be sent to the British
Library, and as copies in the late
nineteenth or early twentieth centuries
were rarely advertised, institutions had to
rely upon the good will of secondhand
booksellers to obtain copies. Then too
owners rarely put their book plates on
copies nor did they inscribe and date them.
I believe I have seen only one copy with an
ownership signature, and that inscription is
unfortunately not dated. It is also true that
very few copies are in signed bindings even
though some of them are quite nicely
bound—again we may suspect that fine
binders were not anxious in Victorian and
Edwardian days to have it known that they
bound such material.
BL —British Library
BO —Bodleian Library, Oxford
GL —G. Legman collection
GRR —author's collection
HU —Harvard University
IU —Indiana University
MC —Murison Burns Collection,
Dunfermline Public Library
NLS —National Library of Scotland
The following abbreviations have been used for locations:
NYP —New York Public Library
ODU —Old Dominion University, Norfolk,
Virginia
TTU —Texas Tech University, Lubbock,
Texas
USC —University of South Carolina
YU —Yale University
VPI —Virginia Polytechnic Institute,
Blacksburg, Virginia
34
1 [1827—1872]
6.2x4.6 in. 15.9x11.6 cm.; page sizes vary
somewhat because of folding, [i-ii], blank; [iii],
half-title; verso, blank; [v], title page; [vi],
limitation (99 copies); [vii]-ix, contents; [x],'
blank; [ix]-xi (for xi-xiii), preface; [xiv-xvi],
blank; [1]-125, text; [126-8], blank. Copies: BL,
GRR.
This edition is assumed to be the earliest; it
was accessioned by the British Library 6th April
1881. It will be noted that the pagination is
faulty; the only numbered preliminary pages are
viii and ix (correct), and x and xi (for xii and
xiii).
2 [1827—1880]
5.7x4.3 in. 14.4x11.0 cm. Title; verso, limita-
tion (99 copies); [iii]-v, preface; [vi], blank;
[vii]-viii, contents; [ 1 ]-124, text. Copies: BL,
YU. " -
; :
As with most editions of the 1827 Merry
Muses, there are no signatures in this edition, so
it is not possible to determine if there should be
preceding or following blank leaves.
35
3 ' [1827—1881]
6.5x4.2 in. 16.6x10.6 cm. Half-title; verso,
blank; title page; verso, blank; [i]-iii, contents;
[iv], blank; [v]-vii, preface; [viii], blank; [9]-90,
text. Copies: State 1, GRR, TTU; State 2,
GRR, NLS. Copy in BL. state not determined.
The two states of this edition have nothing to
indicate a priority. The one noticeable dif-
ference occurs on the first page of the text,
where the lines which separate the words 'Burns'
Merry Muses' from the text are different, and
the word 'Scottish' has been added in State 2.
The title pages of both states have the correct
reading 'to which are added two of his letters'.
Nos. 1 and 2 above read 'to which is added'; this
mistake alone would argue for an earlier
printing of Nos. 1 and 2 than of any edition with
the words 'are added'.
36
4 [1827—1903]
State 1, 6.6x4.3 in. 16.8x11.0 cm.; State 2,
7.1 x4.5 in. 17.9x 11.3 cm. These measurements
in State 2 are true only of the preliminary leaves
which, in fact, vary slightly in height and width.
The text of State 2, however, measures uni-
formly 18.0x11.4 cm. [tc], title page; verso,
blank; [i]-iii, contents; [iv] vi (for v) vi, preface;
[9]-90, text. Copies; State 1, GRR, IU, NLS,
USC; State 2, GRR, HU, VPI. Copies in BL,
BO, MC, state not determined.
The date of this edition was taken by Legman
from the accession date of the copy in the
Bodleian Library. Legman correctly surmises
that this edition may have been issued more than
once. Even the title page of the two states
displays marked differences. In State 1 the
printing on the title page is somewhat more
compact; the lines of the title page in State 2 run
2-3 mm. longer than in State 1: the three rules
which divide the page are also longer and thicker
in State 2. The quality of the paper in State 2 is
much poorer, and finally the book itself is taller,
although there is always the possibility that the
shorter copy has been cropped in binding.
The want of pp. 7-8 suggests that the title page
was counted as p.l when the pagination for the
text was made up. The preliminaries in my copy
of State 2 are printed on different paper from
that used for the text, although both are of very-
poor quality. This suggests the possibility that
prelims, and text were printed at different times,
perhaps even by different printers.
The way in which Legman distinguished this
edition was that the number vi appears in the
prefatory material for both pages v and vi, and
each time the number is on the inner margin,
unlike any other page numbers in the book. In
the text also it is easy to determine that State 2 is
not a simple re-issue, but rather a complete
re-setting. Although it is a line-for-line reprint,
State 2 has throughout a slightly larger type
spread. The differences in the word 'Scottish' at
the beginning of the text in the two states are
also to be found in the words 'English' (p. 46)
and 'Irish' (p. 76).
There are some gross errors in State 1 which
are corrected in State 2. For example, 'iips' on
page 9 of State 1 is corrected to 'lips' in State 2;
on p. 51 'made' is corrected to 'maid' and on p.
73 'I've called in' is corrected to 'I've called it.'
Both of my copies are unusual in that they are
in signed bindings. State 1 was bound by Arthur
S. Colley; State 2 by Bayntun.
5 [1827—1905]
4°: A-P4 [Q]. 6.8x4.1 in. 17.4x10.4 cm. Half-
title, verso, blank; title page; verso, blank;
[v]-vii, contents; [viii], blank; [ix]-xii, preface;
[13]-122, text. Copy: GRR.
The title page is in black and red: 'The Merry
Muses, [. . .] Robert Burns. [. . .] Privately
Printed. [Not for Sale.] 1827'. being in red. The
paper on which the volume is printed is water-
marked Van Gelder. Bound in paper vellum,
this is one of the few well-produced editions of
the 1827 Merry Muses.
38
6 [1827—1905]
6.4x4.4 in. 16.3x11.2 cm. Title page; verso,
limitation (90 copies); half-title, verso, blank;
[v]-vii, contents; [viii], blank; [ix]-xi, preface;
[xii], blank; [1]-124, text. Copy: NLS. & R
It is difficult to say why the half-title was
apparently placed after the title page. The only
copy seen was that at the NLS, acquired in 1972,
and the order of the pages does not appear to
have been tampered with. Nos. 5 and 6, which
Legman suggested might be the same (he had
not personally examined either edition), are
very distinctly different, as can be seen from the
title page as well as internally. This is the only
edition I have seen which has a cut of Burns on
the first page of the text.
39
7 [1827—c. 1910]
6.2x4.9 in. 16.0x12.4 cm. Half-title; verso,
blank; title page; verso, limitation (90 copies);
[v]-vii, contents; [viii], blank; [ix]-xi, preface;
jxii], blank; [1]-126, text. Copy: GRR.
It will be noted that No. 7 loosely follows No.
6 except that the half-title in 7 precedes the title
page, whereas it follows the title page in 6. Two
pages have been added. 'Libel Summons' is
indicated at p. 120 in the contents of both
editions, but in fact the poem does not com-
mence until p. 122 in No. 7. The page number 17
appears on the inside instead of the outside of
the page.
8 [1827—c. 1907]
9 [1827—c. 1910]
Neither of these editions belongs, strictly
speaking, to the 1827 category, as there is no
date on the title page. The statement 'made in
fac-simile of original edition' is meaningless as
these editions are not facsimiles of any known
edition of The Merry Muses. The verso of the
title page claims 'The original manuscript of
these poems was sold at Christy's [sic.], London,
England, in 1907 for £1,800'. Needless to say, no
such sale was ever made. The editions can be
distinguished by the statement on the title page
of No. 8 'Privately printed for member [sic.] of
the Caledonian Society'. This does not appear
on No. 9. Copies: No. 8, NYP; No. 9, GRR, IU,
NYP, YU.
10 [1827—1910]
11 6.1x4.9 in. 15.6x12.3 cm. [1827—1920]
8°: n8 [A]-H8. Blank leaf; half-title, verso, blank;
title page, verso, blank; [V]-vii, contents; [viii],
blank; [ix]-xi, preface; [xii-xiv], blank; [1]-126,
text. Copy: No. 10, NLS; No. 11 GRR.
Like No. 5 [1905], this edition is printed on
Van Gelder paper, but the printing is of much
inferior quality. An oddity of the makeup is that
the chain lines run horizontally. The edition may
have been set from No. 1 [1872], No. 2 [1880],
No. 6 [1905] or No. 7 [c. 1910]; as in these
editions Nos. 10 and 11 revert to the phrase 'to
which is added two of his letters' on the title
page. Of these possibilities, the relationship
between Nos. 6 and 10, and Nos. 7 and 11
appears to be the closest, since 'Libel Summons'
is listed as appearing-on p. 120 in the contents,
and does indeed appear there in the first two,
whereas the poem is still listed on p. 120 in the
contents of Nos. 7 and 11, but actually appears
on p.122.
41
In spite of the differences between Nos. 10
and 11 they would appear to have been printed
from the same typesetting. A MS. note in the
NLS copy of No. 10 states that only 99 copies
were printed. This statement, like limitation
statements in all other editions of The Merry
Muses, must be treated with caution.
12 [1827—c. 1925]
6.6x3.8 in. 16.7x9.6 cm. Half-title; verso,
blank; title page; [iv-vi], preface; [1J-79, text;
[80], blank; 81-82, contents. Copies: GRR,
ODU.
This entry has been added for completeness,
although it can readily be identified by the
imprint which reads: 'Verbatim Reprint of the
MDCCCXXVII Edition. For Myself and my
Friends'.
13 [1827—1930]
5.9x4.9 in. 15.0x12.5 cm. 8°: [A8] B-J8 Blank
leaf; half-title; verso, limitation (100 numbered
copies); title page, verso, blank; [vii]-ix, con-
tents; [x], blank; [xi]-xii, preface to this edition;
[xiii]-xv, preface to the 1827 edition; [xvi],
blank; [lj-126, text; [127-8], blank. Copies:
GRR, HU, USC.
A well-produced edition bound in paper
parchment, this does not pretend to have been
printed in 1827, but (perhaps by coincidence)
with the removal of two leaves (A2 and A6, pp.
3-4, 11-12) the work could be rebound and
passed off as the real thing. The verso of the
half-title reads in Part: Privately Printed, May
1930. by a Gentleman of London for distribution
among his friends. It is NOT TO BE SOLD or
sent through the Post, or shown to Persons of
Immature Intellect.
This edition is the only one to add a later
preface, in addition to retaining the one which
was first published in No. 1. In this later preface
the editor writes about the unashamedly zestfull
enjoyment of sex by Burns, citing Burns's poems
as proof of the poet's enjoyment of love-making.
People of 1930, the editor claims are afraid of
sex and of printing the words which make up the
vocabulary of love-making. This he maintains is
the reason for his edition of The Merry Muses. It
is now 'made available for antiquarians of some
future day—when mental progress will have
caught up with mechanical "progress".' The
most interesting part of the preface follows: 'In
those days, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Ulysses
will be sold openly, as classics. Schoolboys and
girls will have to swat up all about Lawrence and
Joyce—how they had to have their works
printed abroad and smuggled into England,
because they used words in writing which
everybody uses in speech, and has used since the
beginnings of language.'
14 [1827—1962]
7.0x5.0 in. 17.8x12.6 cm. Title page; verso,
copyright and publication statement; [3-4], 1827
preface; [5]-36, text. Title page in red and black;
printed paper wrapper in red and black. Stapled
in perfect binding. Copies GL, GRR.
The cover title calls this 'Robert Burns'
private collection of high-kilted folk poems' and
on the title page we read that these songs were
'Originally collected by Robert Burns'. Neither
statement is entirely true: some of the sixteen
songs here included are certainly not folk
literature, and several of them are very
definitely not by Burns, including some of the
'Scottish' ones which are not Scottish at all.
Although the title page wording differs from No.
5 [1905] the layout suggests that it may have
been the text from which this selection was
made; the words 'The Merry Muses' and
'Robert Burns' are very similar in the two
editions, and they are, as is the imprint, printed
in red in both volumes.
15 [1827—1962]
Size as No. 14. Half-title; verso, publication
statement; title page; verso, copyright; [5-7],
1827 preface; [8], blank; [9]-40, text. Stapled
through the middle pages. Copies: GL, GRR.
The publication statement identifies this edi-
tion as an offset copy of the earlier edition,
which was handset. The title page is in black
only. The paper wrapper differs from No. 14 in
that it does not identify the illustration on both
covers ('The Mouses Tail').
16 [1827—c. 1900]
This edition is included in Legman's list from a
copy which he owned personally but did not
describe. It was published in Tonawanda, New
York. It has not been available for inspection.
17 [1827-1890-1920]
6.9x4.5 in. 17.6x11.5 cm. Title page; verso,
blank; 3-4, preface; [5-6], blank; [7]-102, text;
103-4, contents. Copy: MC.
Another poorly printed edition which Legman
suggests was printed in Scotland. It was acces-
sioned by the Murison Collection in 1921. Like
Nos. 8 and 9 this edition does not have any date
on the title page. It follows Nos. 1 and 2 and
later editions with the reading: 'to which is
added two of his letters'.
As I have said, so little is known about the
production of these editions that it is very
difficult to be precise about them. No printer or
date of printing appears to be known for any of
the clandestinely circulated copies (i.e. all of
those listed above with the exception of Nos. 14
and 15) and of course we have no reason to feel
sure that the limitations proclaimed were in fact
adhered to. The nature of the production of
these books would have made it tempting, and
impossible to control, for pressmen to have
printed up their own copies—clandestine copies
of clandestine books!
44
I expect that there are still more editions or
variants of editions of the 1827 Merry Muses,
and I should be grateful to hear from readers
who may know of them.
FOOTNOTES
1The Letters of Robert Burns, 2nd Edn. Ed. G.
Ross Roy (Oxford, 1985), II, 138. Henceforth-
Letters.
2I have in my possession a copy of this leaf, and
correspondence authenticating it.
3 The Merry Muses of Caledonia Collected and in
part Written by Robert Burns, ed. G. Legman
(New Hyde Park, New York [1965]), p. 278. At
the time of publication the only known copy was
in the collection of the Earl of Rosebery.
Unfortunately the bottom of the title page
containing the date is wanting in that copy, so it
was not until the discovery of another copy that
the true date of publication (1799) was
established.
4Ibid., p.279. See also Legman's The Horn
Book: Studies in Erotic Folklore and
Bibliography (New Hyde Park, New York,
1964), 'The Merry Muses as Erotic Folklore', pp.
170-236, for a detailed discussion of the contents
of the various editions of The Merry Muses.
5Letters, II, 328. Burns had composed a song to
the air in 1787 and it was published in The Scots
Musical Museum the following year. This song is
a good example of how Burns frequently took
indecent words and made them respectable.
6Letters, II. 306.
7For an unexplained reason the order of the six
stanzas as compared to the 1799 edition is 1, 2,
6, 5,4, 3. Even though the song does not make
as much sense with stanzas in that order, it was
retained in all the 1827 editions and also
retained by McNaught in the edition of 1911.
The first edition to correct this was that of 1959.
*The Life and Works of Robert Bums. Ed.
Robert Chambers (Edinburgh, 1856-7), II, 261.
45