Poems on Various Subjects by Robert Ferguson. In two parts. Paisley, Neilson, 1796.
18mo, (130 x 78mm), pp. iv, [5]-226, [2] contents, text fairly browned in part, in contemporary calf, foot of spine chipped, rubbed on extremities but sound, with the ownership inscription of ‘Robert Whyte, Pewterer, 1802, Volm 24’.
A scarce posthumous edition of Fergusson’s Poems on Various Subjects, first published in 1773. It was shortly after the publication of these poems that Fergusson started suffering depression. He then, in falling down a flight of stairs, suffered a serious blow to his head from which his reason and his health never recovered. He died in the Edinburgh Bedlam in the following year, aged 24. His poetry was later made popular by Robert Burns, who saw in him his own precursor. In 1787 Burns erected a momument at Fergusson’s grave in Canongate Kirkyard, commemorating him as ‘Scotia’s Poet’.
In the same year, Smith of Paisley also printed Fergusson’s The Ghaists: a kirk-yard eclogue (ESTC t184779, at NLS only).
ESTC n24650, at NLS, Bodleian, Columbia and Huntington only.