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First edition, first issue, of Sir Walter Scott s first published book; in Greig s view, it is the translation which best renders the spirit of the original (p. 18). Although he was not present when Anna Laetitia Barbauld read William Taylor s translation at Dugald Stewart s house, Scott was stimulated to find his own copy of the German original. He met the Aberdonian James Skene of Rubislaw, who had lived in Saxony for some years and had a collection of German books. The poems in the German manner included within Matthew Lewis s The Monk (1796) were a further stimulus, and in April 1796 Scott tried his hand at translating Leonore. He began the task … after supper, and did not retire to bed until he had finished it, having by that time worked himself into a state of excitement which set sleep at defiance . So pleased was Scott with the reaction of his friends that he proceeded to translate another Bürger poem, Der wilde Jäger, and the two were published together anonymously as The Chase, and William and Helen … 1 November 1796 (Oxford DNB). Scott later commented: The fate of this, my first publication, was by no means flattering. I distributed so many copies among friends as, according to the booksellers, materially to interfere with the sale; and the number of translations which appeared in England about the same time … were sufficient to exclude a provincial writer from competition … In a word, my adventure … proved a dead loss, and a great part of the edition was condemned to the service of the trunk-maker (Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad, 1830). Morgan 846; Todd & Bowden 1Aa. 4to (256 × 200 mm), pp. v, [1], 41, [1]; a few spots, light offsetting from the leather on the binding; nineteenth-century half calf, moiré cloth sides, blob of melted wax to rear cover, spine lettered gilt, endpapers spotted; ticket of Robert Seton, Stationer and Bookbinder to the King (fl.1833 7), Edinburgh, to rear pastedown. Seller Inventory # ABE-1594982966864
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