Description
Book SynopsisThe tragedy of Douglas was first performed in 1756, at the heart of the Scottish Enlightenment, and created a scandal. The controversy was literary, religious and political. Following an introduction, this new edition reprints the text of the play (based on the Edinburgh edition of 1757), and then devotes the rest of the book to illustrating its popular reception - mainly as expressed in contemporary pamphlets. Appendices include biographical notes and a timeline.
Trade Review'Ralph McLean and Humming Earth have made a huge contribution to eighteenth-century Scottish studies by giving us a new edition of John Home's Douglas (long out of print) along with facsimiles of three dozen contemporary broadsides, pamphlets, proclamations, and advertisements relating to the play. These primary sources may well generate a resurgence of interest in Douglas, in Home and his work, in the Scottish stage, in cultural identity as a national and religious issue, in the rise of the two ecclesiastical parties within the Church of Scotland, and in the supporting roles played by prominent figures such as David Hume, Adam Ferguson, and John Witherspoon.' Richard B. Sher, Distinguished Professor of History at the New Jersey College of Technology. 'McLean has produced a rich, thought-provoking volume; we are indebted to him and to Humming Earth for making available again this important body of primary material.' Susan Manning, University of Edinburgh, in Eighteenth-Century Scotland No. 25, Spring 2011
