Border Antiquities of England and Scotland , Sir Walter Scott. This set of books by Sir Walter Scott is titled “The Border Antiquities of England and Scotland, Comprising Specimens of Architecture and Sculpture, and Other Vestiges of Former Ages, Accompanied by Descriptions, Together with Illustrations of Remarkable Incidents in Border History and Tradition, and Original Poetry”; the set was published in London in two volumes by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown on Paternoster Row, by J. Murray on Albemarle-Street, by John Grieg on Upper-Street, Islington, and Constable And Co. in Edinburgh, the first volume was published in 1814 and the second one was published in 1817, and it is a first edition set, according to WorldCat. The vignette title page of the second volume reads “The Border Antiquities of England and Scotland, Comprising Specimens of the Architecture, Sculpture, and Other Vestiges of Former Ages, Accompanied with Descriptive Sketches Biographical Remarks, And A Brief History of the Principal Events That Have Occurred in the Interestinig Part of Great Britain”. {“Interestinig” is misspelled and should be “Interesting”.) The books are 3/4 bound, with four raised bands, five gilt-ruled compartments with gilt lettering and elaborate gilt tooling on the spines, marbled boards with the bookplate of Aspley House on the front paste-downs, both books are inscribed “A. H. Hepburn” on the blank flyleaves in front, the books have wide margins, there are 96 plates as called for, including the vignette title page in the second volume, both books were printed by T. Davison at Whitefriars in London, and all the edges are gilt. Volume I has a a frontispiece of the entrance to Molyrood Chapel with a protective tissue guard, a regular title page, a note to the subscribers dated 1814, a long Introduction by Scott - it is 127 pages long - then the plates which began with Morpeth Castle and end with a Monument for New Castle on page 128, with tissue guards for each plate. The second volume has a half-title, a landscape frontispiece of Langholm with the protective tissue guard, then the vignette title page followed by the regular title page, the first plate shows Lindisfarne Abbey and Holy Island Castle and begins on page 129, where the first book left off, followed by a two-page List of Plates, an Appendix that is 101 pages long (there are 13 Appendices that run to ci), and an eleven-page General Index of Names and Subjects that is unpaginated. Sir Walter Scott (1771 - 1832) was a Scottish novelist, historian, playwright, and poet, and his works are classics of European and Scottish literature, including Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, and The Lady of the Lake; he established the historical novel as a genre for European Romanticism, and he had a major impact on European and American literature. The books are 4to. and measure 11 1/4 x 8 7/8 in. wide, with tight-bindings and lots of clean pages and text. In Volume I there are brown spots on the front endpapers and tissue guard, offset from the frontispiece, faint brown spots on some of the plates and tissue guards, with offset here and there, but many of the plates are clean; there is rubbing and wear on parts of the spine and at the tips, and a couple of scrapes or wear on the leather. In the second volume there’s rubbing at the heel and crown and along the edges of the spine, rubbing and wear at the tips, light brown spots and light offset here and there on some of the plates and text, a lot of clean pages and text and plates too, and the long Appendixes and Index are very clean. And if you live nearby, you’ll find plates of Cumberland, Dumfriesshire, Edinburgh, Edinburghshire, Fifeshire, Haddingtonshire, Northumberland, Peeblesshire, Roxbury, Roxburghshire, Stirlingshire, and Westmoreland inside. So this is a complete two-volume first edition set of Border Antiquities by Sir Walter Scott, in the original volumes published in 1814 and 1817, all the plates are present, with brown spots and offset here and there, but many of the pages and text and plates are very clean. You’ll be surprised, and the spelling mistake in the second volume - “interesting" is misspelled “interestinig” - seems like an uncorrected point of issue that has not been caught by many scholars or researchers of this title and may indicate an early first printing of the first edition. We are not sure, but it warrants more investigation. #186 #1647