8vo. xii, 330pp, [2]. With half-title. Contemporary gilt-tooled calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece to spine. Rubbed and marked, with light surface wear to joints and edges, and some damp-staining to boards. Book-label of J. O. Edwards and early manuscript shelf-mark 'PP. c 34' to FEP. Leaves lightly browned, with occasional light spotting throughout, and heavier spotting and staining to initial and terminal leaves.

An eighteenth-century reprint of a selection of key works from Edinburgh merchant George Bannatyne's (1545-1607/8) influential manuscript anthology of Scottish poetry (1568), which contains vital Middle Scots selections by, among others, Henryson, Dunbar, Lyndsay, Alexander Scott and Alexander Montgomerie. Bannatyne, after whom Sir Walter Scott named his literary society, reportedly compiled his original eight-hundred page folio in isolation during a period of plague.