12mo. Three volumes bound as one. [6], 23, [1], 146; [2], 171, [13]; [2], 90, 61pp, [5]. With an additional collective title page: 'Ye actis and deidis of ye illuster and vailzeand campioun, Shyr Wilham Wallace, Knycht off Elrisle', an engraved frontispiece to each volume, and a list of subscribers. Contemporary gilt-tooled calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece. Rubbed, joints starting, spine dulled and cracked. Recent bookplate of Eric Gerald Stanley to FEP, fore-edge shaved.

A late eighteenth century Perth printed edition of Blind Hary’s (b. c. 1440, d. in or after 1492) epic verse life of William Wallace; the only work which can be attributed with certainty to him. The earliest text of the poem is a manuscript by John Ramsay dated 1488. Hary based his work on a Latin prose history of Wallace by John Blair, of which no copy survives. The subscribers to this edition included Robert Burns (1759-1796), who much admired the poem. He commented that the lines 'A false usurper sinks in every foe / And liberty returns with every blow' as 'a couplet worthy of Homer' and incorporated them in his own patriotic composition 'Robert Bruce's Address to his Army at Bannockburn' (1793).