The Peasant Poets of Scotland. And Musings under the Beeches, by Henry Shanks, The Blind Poets of the Deans. With memoir and portrait of the author.

Notes

The first edition of this biography of Robert Burns, James Hogg, and other Scottish 'peasant poets', coupled with a memoir and collection of verse by Henry Shanks (1829-1911). He was born in Bathgate, and spent eleven years following 'mercantile pursuits' after apprenticing in the 'oil, paint, colour and drysaltery trade in Leith' upon leaving school at seventeen. A few years after returning to live with his family, he lost all of his sight over the course of a year due to disease. In the memoir he spends several pages recounting how a renewed interested in music, learning to walk with a stick, and working on poetry helped to occupy him and aid his transition into living as a blind man.
This copy is inscribed to a Daniel Wylie, the author's nephew, with a later Wylie ownership inscription to the rear dated 1955. Someone has pasted in another poem by Shanks to the rear flyleaf, and included a 1911 partial clipping of his obituary.