A rare first edition of Robert Burns poems, saved from destruction in Victorian times, has gone on display until 4 February.
The volume, which is being exhibited in Dunfermline, was in a dilapidated state when it was rescued from a barber’s shop in Shrewsbury in the 1880s.
A Burns enthusiast, who spotted the proprietor tearing out pages to clean razors, stepped in to buy the copy of Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect.
The book, missing its first 50 pages, will be displayed at Dunfermline Carnegie Library & Galleries – next to the Abbey Church, which Burns visited in 1787.
Only 612 copies of Burns’ debut collection were printed in 1786 and it is thought that only 84 copies of the book, commonly known as the Kilmarnock Edition, survive worldwide.
The truncated edition is part of the renowned John Murison Collection that is cared for by the cultural charity OnFife, which runs the Carnegie Library & Galleries.
The book will be displayed with other Burns-related material collected by Glasgow-born Murison, who visited Shrewsbury when he was working as a travelling seed merchant.
Murison’s treasure trove of 1700 artefacts – one of the world’s finest Burns collections– was bought by construction mogul Sir Alexander Gibb, who gifted it to Dunfermline Carnegie Library 1921. Gibb was primary contractor in the building of Rosyth Naval Base.
The Murison Kilmarnock Edition last went on display prior to first Lockdown in 2020, as part of the Tae a Bard exhibition at Carnegie Library & Galleries.
Because of its fragile condition, the book is housed in a conservation box paid for by the Dunfermline United Burns Club.
OnFife Local Studies Officer Sara Kelly says it is a mystery how the book found its way to Shropshire: “The only noted owner is an Alexander Dick in 1790, so there’s more research to be done if we are to chart the book’s journey to Shrewsbury.
“It’s wonderful that John Murison had the presence of mind to step in and save the book, given that so few of them still exist.”
Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was printed by John Wilson of Kilmarnock and, selling for three shillings, the entire print-run sold out within one month,
Missing from the Murison copy are its first three poems – The Twa Dogs, Scotch Drink and The Author’s Earnest Cry and Prayer. Only a page and a half remains of the fourth poem, The Holy Fair.