Rare Robert Burns's manuscripts added to Roy Collection
Contributed by USC's Thomas Cooper Library

Francese Larsen with Dr. Ross Roy holding A unique item in the Burns's new collection, a 1770 wooden porridge bowl which was displayed at the Glasgow Burns Centenary Exhibition in 1896. Below is a photograph of the bowl

At a ceremony on January 25, Robert Burns's 249th birthday, Dr. and Mrs. G. Ross Roy formally handed over to Thomas Cooper Library their collection of rare manuscript materials relating to the Scottish poet. In addition to about 20 manuscripts in Burns's own hand, the collection included a cameo and a statue of Burns as well as other Scottish items.

The items join the library's G. Ross Roy Collection of Robert Burns, Burnsiana & Scottish Poetry, the largest collection of Scottish poetry outside Scotland, which Dr. Roy transferred to the University in 1989. The new items, with a gift value appraised at more than $150,000, will be displayed at the Thomas Cooper Library in an exhibit celebrating the 250th anniversary of Burns' birth in April 2009.

Especially noteworthy is a 1787 copy of the Burns Edinburgh edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, annotated by Burns for his friend Robert Ainslie, which contains Ainslie's ownership signature, an autograph letter from Burns to Ainslie dated October 11, 1788, and a portion of another letter from Burns dated October 18, 1788.

Another item is a signed letter from Burns to "Clarinda," Agnes M'Lehose written in early 1787. The letter is part of the correspondence between the two using the names of "Sylvander" and "Clarinda," perhaps as a literary device or game, but perhaps also to disguise their identities.

A unique item in the new collection is Burns's wooden porridge bowl which was displayed at the Glasgow Burns Centenary Exhibition in 1896.

Dr. Roy, an internationally- recognized Burns scholar, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English & Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina. He earned doctorates from the University of Montreal and the Sorbonne and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. He began collecting Robert Burns materials more than 50 years ago, building on a small Burns collection he inherited from his grandfather W. Ormiston Roy. The Roy Collection now comprises nearly 12,000 items on all periods of Scottish poetry, with more than 5000 items by or about Burns himself. The collection regularly attracts scholars and researchers from around the world.