Rare Burns Item

DARTMOUTH'S Baker Library has acquired a rare copy of the first edition of Robert Burns' first book of poems.

The first edition, limited to 621 copies, was published in Kilmarnock, Scotland, in 1786 under the title Poems, Chiefly in theScottish Dialect. It is now widely known as the "Kilmarnock Burns."

The library's acquisition remedies the only serious lack in the Dartmouth Burns Collection. The Dartmouth possessions, even before this acquisition, enjoyed a reputation as one of the outstanding collections of Burnsiana in America.

The copy of the Kilmarnock now at Dartmouth was purchased last month from a London bookdealer, Mr. Charles Sawyer. Edward C. Lathem '51, Director of Special Collections for Baker Library, now on leave of absence in England, negotiated the purchase.

Little is known of the history of this new volume. Sawyer is reported to have purchased it himself at a London auction of the library of Lord Crewe, and it apparently was at Crewe Hall in Cheshire during preceding years.

The copy has been rebound in modern red Morocco, probably during the time of Lord Crewe's ownership, and it is in excellent condition. It is a "tall" copy, a bibliophile's term meaning it has not been cut down for successive rebindings and it retains its original wide margins.

Baker Library has for some years owned a fragmentary copy of the Kilmarnock, given several years ago by Mrs. Flora V. Livingston, but its efforts to obtain a complete and first-rate copy had been unsuccessful until the recent purchase.

The library acquired the foundation of its now pre-eminent Burns Collection in 1942 through negotiations carried on by Professor Joel Egerer of the English Department with the British bibliographer Theodore Besterman. The collection, then numbering some 1600 items, has gradually been increased by the acquisition of more than 150 additional items.