The Poems of Ossian

2 sexto volumes, overall 7-5/8 x 4-5/8 in. (194 x 118 mm). Only Anderson edition. 8 original wood engravings by Alexander Anderson printed on thin India paper. Publisher's buff paper-covered boards, printed covers and spines, text block uncut and largely unopened. Collates, vol. I, []^2, A^6 - Ee^6, Ff^4 (plus 2 blank ll. front and rear and 4 inserted wood engravings): 346 pp. plus the blanks and engravings; vol. II, []^2, B^2, C^6 - Gg^6, Hh^2 (plus 2 blank ll. front and rear and 4 inserted wood engravings): 348 pp. plus the blanks and engravings. Each volume with autograph inscription in ink on the second free blank recto, "Mary Lenox, from / D.S. Kennedy." Bindings chipped, rubbed and soiled, some lettering effaced, spines worn through in parts, front cover vol. I loose but intact, first blank of first volume torn, lacking top third (typically to eradicate a former owner's inscription), the text blocks clean and well printed on cream wove paper having negligible scattered stains and other faults and inconsequential occasional short closed tears and edge flaking, overall in very good condition saving the distressed paper covering of the boards and spines, in original unsophisticated state, largely unopened. When James Macpherson translated into English his purported discoveries of heroic third-century Scottish poetry, first the Fragments in 1760, expanded with the epics Fingal, 1762, and Temora, 1763, and The Works of Ossian in 1765, he attracted a wide continental cult transfixed with the high romantic strains that "Fingal fought, and Ossian sang" (Gibbon). At home, nonetheless, Thomas Gray wondered of these mushrooming traces of supposedly ancient poetry whether they were the invention of antiquity or of a modern Scotchman. David Hume invited Macpherson to display the unrevealed original manuscripts, without result, while Macpherson's editor Dr. Blair scurried to collect testimonies of Highlanders still possessing hoary Gaelic manuscripts or any gift of reciting memorized passages descended from misty oral tradition. By the time of Black's seminal bibliography and study for The New York Public Library, 1926, Macpherson and his Ossian, their fever still propagating in numerous editions and translations, "can now be set down as one of the most remarkable literary impostures that has happened in Britain in modern times." Alexander Anderson (1775-1870), widely credited as America's first wood engraver, illustrated this set with 8 original blocks after the mature open style of Thomas Bewick. Of these prints Pomeroy says (infra, v. I, p. 398): "The engravings are among Anderson's most accomplished from this period, they show him in command of his medium and are dramatic, detailed, and vigorous. His use of sparkling contrasts of tone and balance of black and white is noteworthy." The inscription in each volume evidences the gift of David Sproat Kennedy to his daughter Mary Lenox. His wife, her mother, was Rachel Carmer Lenox, sister of James Lenox (1800-1880), Mary's uncle, who founded the Lenox Library in 1870 on the present site of The Frick Collection. The Lenox Library, with the Astor Library and the Tilden Trust, became a cornerstone of The New York Public Library in 1895. Provenance: David Sproat Kennedy (1791-1853); Mary Lenox Kennedy (1829-1922); Jacques Levy (1905-1980). References: Pomeroy, Jane R., Alexander Anderson (1775-1870), Wood Engraver and Illustrator: An Annotated Bibliography (New Castle: Oak Knoll Press, and Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, with The New York Public Library, 2005), no. 317; PLEASE SEE ALSO OUR LISTING: Burr, Frederic M., Life and Works of Alexander Anderson, M.D., the First American Wood Engraver (New York: Burr Brothers, 1893), one of 25 deluxe copies printed on Crane s Parchment Vellum Paper, signed by the author, before 725 regular copies of the edition of 750.…