In addition to Burnsiana, the G. Ross Roy Collection covers a wide range of Scottish literature, including poetry anthologies, histories, and modern writings.
18th Century
Musick for Allan Ramsay’s Collection of 71 Scots Songs
This collection presents simple settings of the tunes for the first edition of the songs in Allan Ramsay’s Tea-Table Miscellany of 1724.
19th Century
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped in Young Folks Paper
Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel about the adventures of young David Balfour, is one of the author’s most famous works. Set in eighteenth-century Scotland, Kidnapped originally appeared in serialized form in James Henderson’s literary magazine Young Folks Paper from May 1 to July 31, 1886. This paper was published under various titles from 1871 to 1897 and hosted the first editions of Stevenson’s Treasure Island and The Black Arrow, as well as Kidnapped.
Scottish Literature Chapbooks Not Including Appearances by Robert Burns
In addition to Burnsiana, the G. Ross Roy Collection covers a wide range of Scottish literature, including poetry anthologies, histories, and modern writings.
Other Collections
The James Willard Oliver David Hume Collection
This collection includes both early editions of works by the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) and extensive holdings of scholarship about his life and thought.
The collection was formed by Prof. James Willard Oliver (1912-2001). Prof. Oliver (Ph.D. Harvard 1949) taught at the University of Florida and at the University of Southern California before moving to the University of South Carolina in 1964, as Professor and first Head of the new Department of Philosophy. Through his generosity, the Hume collection was transferred to the University in 1997.
The Rodger L. Tarr Collection of Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), the Scottish-born social critic and historian, was one of the formative influences on nineteenth-century intellectual life on both sides of the Atlantic. His published writings range from mathematics, German literature, and politics to biography, theology, literary criticism, and history.
Prof. Rodger L. Tarr, a South Carolina alumnus who prepared the standard Pittsburgh bibliography of Carlyle’s writings (1989), built up this superb collection over a twenty-year period. It comprises approximately 1500 items, including first editions and reprintings in original condition of Carlyle’s works from his translation of Legendre’s Elements of Geometry (Edinburgh, 1824) onwards. The collection also has works by and about Jane Welsh Carlyle, and visual materials and secondary publications on both the Carlyles.