Poems by the late reverend Dr. thomas blacklock; together with an essay on the education of the blind. To which is prefixed A New Account of the Life and Writings of the Author

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viii, xxxv, [1], 262pp. With a half-title. Contemporary dark green half-morocco, marbled papers boards, ruled and lettered in gilt, personalised binding with 'The Gift of Miss Smithson' in gilt to foot of spine. Rubbed and marked. Early inked ownership inscription (?)J. Floody and book-label of Henry Walker to FEP, with his stamped monogram to head of title page, ink smear to margin of p.43, very occasional light spotting. F2 A choice copy, in an unusual contemporary presentation binding stamped 'The Gift of Miss Smithson' to the foot of spine, of the collected verse of blind Scottish poet Thomas Blacklock (1721-1791), who had been supported by David Hume and later himself, upon reading the Kilmarnock edition, encouraged Robert Burns to produce the enlarged Edinburgh edition of his own poems, which secured the latter's fame. Published after the poet's death, and featuring prologues to Othello and Hamlet, and satirical 'Address to Ladies', this book is of more significance to the history of education than literature. It features the poet's translation, the first into English, of an early English text on education of the blind: Valentin Hauy's Essai sur l'Ã ducation des aveugles (Paris 1786), which includes chapters on 'the art of printing' not only for the blind, but also by the blind for the sighted, and a six-stanza verse on the subject of sight, by Huard 'Blind, and Pensioner to the Philanthrophic Society of Paris'. This edition, the publication of which coincided with the establishment - by Blacklock's friends David Miller, and Rev. David Johnston - of the Scottish charitable Society for the Relief of the Indigent Blind, and the Royal Blind School, Edinburgh, was intended to feature a 'specimen of printing by the blind children of the charitable seminary at Paris', which was disrupted by the 'present distracted state of France'. Frustratingly, we have been unable to trace the origin of the presentation tooling to the foot of the spine; an unusual feature on an English book. ESTC T80566. Size: Quarto. N° de ref. del artículo AQ28406

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