A couple years ago, my wife purchased this book at a local church book sale for $5. The lovely binding and cover design caught her eye, and she discovered that it was a volume of poetry from a set by Sir Walter Scott published in 1822. She has recently done some preliminary research on the book, but after reading Lisa’s blog about the books she’s discovered, I thought a little more in-depth research would be worthwhile.
The Arch. Constable and Co. Edinburgh publisher, who printed this eight volume set in 1822, was founded by Archibald Constable in 1795 as part of his antiquarian bookstore in Edinburgh. In addition to publishing Sir Walter Scott, Arch. Constable and Co. also published works by Bram Stoker, Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, Herman Melville, and numerous others. The publishing house continues over 200 years later as Constable & Robinson.
Volume VI contains Scott’s narrative poem Rokeby in its entirety, along with lengthy notes following the poem explaining each section. The inclusion of these notes was fortunate, as Rokeby is considered to be among Scott’s most difficult works. It is set during the English Civil War, and characters tend toward allegorical embodiments of abstract emotions and concepts.
This particular volume became doubly interesting when my wife noticed what appears to be a previous owner’s label on the front endpaper, which reads, “Major Geo. Gun, Munro, of Poynstfield.” It’s somewhat difficult to pinpoint who exactly this is, given the number of Munro’s (and even the number of George Gunn Munro’s) in Scottish history, but if we narrow it down somewhat by time period (around the publication date of the book), the best match seems to be Major George Gunn Munro (1788-1852), who was the fourth laird of Poyntsfield (also spelled Poyntzfield, located in Scotland near Jemimaville, Highland).
Now, what’s curious is that the label appears to be typewritten. Typewriters were not commercially available until about 1870, so it seems unlikely that Major Munro typed the label himself. It is possible that someone of his social status (and likely considerably-sized personal library) had labels printed professionally; it is also possible (and maybe more likely) that at some later point in history, perhaps when his library was being transferred or donated, books were labeled to record original ownership.
If one were to come across the complete eight volume set, it would be worth somewhere between $200 and $400, depending on condition. A single volume like my wife found seems to be worth between $20 and $30 based on recent market prices.
Books have many purposes. Yes, to some degree each book is created to convey some story or information to the reader. But they live on as investments, as reminders, as references, as tokens, and in this case, as a record of a writer, a publisher, and an owner.
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