AYTOUN, William Edmondstoune. Lays of the Scottish cavaliers and other poems. With illustrations by Joseph Noel Paton and Waller H. Paton. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons. 1863.
4to. Contemporary red hard-grain morocco, spine richly gilt in compartments and lettered direct, covers with gilt triple fillet border, dentelle and palmette rolls, gilt foliate corner pieces, marbled endpapers, gilt edges; pp. [xiv], 268, with many wood-engraved illustrations in text, head-, and tailpieces; hinges cracked but sound, extremities slightly rubbed, headcap missing; occasional thumbing, small stains to a few leaves, short closed tear to lower edge of p. 7, short closed tear to inner margin of p. 13, very light dampstaining to lower outer corner of final 25 pp., but overall very good.
First Paton edition, profusely illustrated and handsomely bound. Aytoun’s Lays of the Scottish cavaliers is a series of ballads concerning Scottish historical subjects and heroes, first published in 1849. Modelled on the work of Thomas Babington Macaulay and Sir Walter Scott, these ballads became significant texts in the romantic revival of mid-Victorian Scotland, a movement bolstered by Queen Victoria’s passion for the country. This edition features numerous illustrations, head-, and tailpieces by the Scottish artist Joseph Noel Paton (with contributions of his brother Waller Hugh Paton), engraved on wood by John Thompson, Dalziel, William James Linton, and others. The characters are depicted in historically-accurate armour and costumes, meticulously researched by Paton. The compositions, densely arranged yet dynamic, are reminiscent of German Romanticism.
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