When I first planned my trip to USC, Frank Shaw suggested that I come a couple of days early and visit with him and the Burns Club of Atlanta before travelling to Columbia. I jumped at this invitation, because everyone knows Frank has an outstanding Burns library, and a great enthusiasm for the Bard.
Frank came to Burns relatively recently, his first love in literature is for Sir Walter Scott, and on entering his basement library I saw his massive Scott collection, then the bookcases of other Scottish literature with a substatintial array of Hugh MacDiarmid, on to general Scots interests with a bias towards his Clan background and history. American literature also grabs Frank and he has a fantastic collection by and about Ernest Hemmingway with some really rare items.
But there is a special room set aside for Robert Burns, and in here we find the treasures, in fact almost every treasure one could imagine that a Burns library would hold. The Kilmarnock Edition heads the printed works, and there are both Edinburgh variants, the 1787 piracies of Belfast and Dublin, 1787 London, and, of course, the first American editions of 1788 Philadelphia and New York.
All the great editions;- Johnson's Scot's Musical Museum, Thomson's Select Collection, Grose's Antiquities, and on to the early biographies, some in quite beautiful bindings, all in very good condition and lovingly cared for. Shelves full of the mass of Victorian writings and Burnsiana, and the most important works of Burns scholarship and comment kept at hand close to the desk, for Frank is not only a collector, he has become known as a prolific writer and speaker to Burns, St Andrew's, and Scot's gatherings over a wide area. His "Robert Burns Lives" pages on Electric Scotland www.electricscotland.com/familytree/frank/burns.htm are among the best read Burns pages on the web.
The enthusiasm for Burns and collecting runs on into a mass of ephemeral items, programmes from great dinners through the ages, hundreds of postcard's, several nice pieces of Mauchline Ware, various items of Burnsiana, many statuetes and busts, and here is another uniquie piece,
a larger than life bronze bust stands high overlooking the room, specially commisioned from the artist Robert Lewis "Whisper" Frankel, it is surely a great testament to the love of Burns exhibited everywhere in this library.Frank is the epitome of the Southern Gentleman. He and his wife Susan are among the finest people you could meet, they will be touring Scotland with their family in June, if anyone bumps into them please show them some of our hospitality. I will always remember the couple of days I was their guest in Atlanta and enjoyed their Southern Hospitality.
1 comment:
I recently purchased a small leather bound book of Burns poetry. It appears to be rather old. The cover is leather and has some damage and a great deal of wear. There is what appears to be a hand painted wreath of leaves and perhaps thistles on the cover with the title Burns. All of the pages are intact, there is a small print of a portrait of Burns inside; it was published by Hurst of New York . It begins with a cronological table of life and works. There is no date on the book and I would love to have more information on it. There is even an old book mark inside. The pages are in very good condition. I would wonder where a person might take such a book to have some restoration done on the cover. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
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