| Reliquiae Trotcosienses: Or, the Gabions of the Late Jonathan Oldbuck Esq. of Monkbarns Contributor(s): Scott, Walter (Author), Carruthers, Gerard (Editor), Lumsden, Alison (Editor) |
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ISBN: 0748620729 ISBN-13: 9780748620722 Publisher: Edinburgh University Press OUR PRICE: $118.75 Product Type: Hardcover Published: April 2004 Annotation: One of Scott's last works, "Reliquiae Trotcosienses" was suppressed by his literary executor and his publisher after his death. This is the first complete edition, although extracts were published in 1889 and 1905. This edition has been edited from the manuscript recently relocated to the library at Abbotsford-the house near Melrose in the Scottish Borders that Scott built for his library and museum. "Reliquiae Trotcosienses (the relics of Trotcosey)" is a guide to Abbotsford and its collections. It illustrates in detail the different ways in which Scott tried to recover the past: through building, collecting, and the multiple acts of narration that invest objects with significance. While simultaneously a work of fiction this book satirizes the impulses of antiquarian collection. Scott did not take himself seriously, as revealed through the learned buffoonery which mocks the kind of activity in which he was engaged as writer and collector. This is also a personal, elegiac creation, since the narrator, as he approaches death recognises that the house, its artifacts, and above all the writings will live on to mourn their begetter. In essence, they are fragments shored against his ruin. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Fiction | Literary - Fiction | Classics |
| Dewey: FIC |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 6" W x 8.76" (0.74 lbs) 168 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Asian |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Reliquiae Trotcosienses was one of Scott's last works, and, after his death, was suppressed by his literary executor and his publisher. Although extracts were published in 1889 and 1905, this is the first complete edition, and has been edited from the manuscript recently relocated in the library at Abbotsford, the house near Melrose in the Scottish Borders which Scott built for his library and museum.Reliquiae Trotcosienses (the relics of Trotcosey) is a guide to Abbotsford and to its collections, and illustrates in miniature all the different ways in which Scott tried to recover the past: in building, in collecting, and in the multiple acts of narration which invest objects with significance. But it is simultaneously a work of fiction, which satirises the impulses of antiquarian collection. Scott would not take himself seriously, and through the learned buffoonery of this extraordinary work he mocks the kind of activity in which he was engaged as writer and collector.Yet this is also a personal, elegiac creation, for the narrator as he approaches death recognises that the house, its artefacts, and above all the writings will live on to mourn their begetter: they are fragments shored against his ruin. |