first edition of the author's first poetry collection

This charming first edition of early-20th-century Scottish poetry exhibits Hugh MacDiarmid's unique usage of 'synthetic Scots', a literary version of the Scots language that MacDiarmid developed in this and later publications. MacDiarmid's first collection of poetry is a fascinating curio in the complicated history of Scotland and its indigenous languages and a foundational text of the Scottish Renaissance.

The collection begins with an introduction by John Buchan (1875-1940), a Scottish writer and historian who, in 1924, had become the president of the Scottish Historical Society and a trustee of the National Library of Scotland. In his introduction, Buchan assesses what he calls the 'at once reactionary and revolutionary' choice to write in a revived version of Scots.

This copy contains the bookplate of the Scottish literary agent and writer, Giles Gordon (1940-2003), who worked at Secker & Warburg, Penguin, and Gollancz, and wrote and published his own criticism, poetry, and novels.

First edition; 8vo (19 x 13 cm); bookplate on upper pastedown endpaper, offsetting on preliminaries and back endpapers, relevant newspaper clipping loosely inserted between pp. 20 and 21; publisher's blue cloth, spine lettered in black, faded on extremities, original typographic dustjacket lettered in black (faded with some offsetting, reinforced with paper and plastic cover); xii, 58, 4, [ii]pp.