Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era – PDF/EPUB Version Downloadable

One of the earliest documented Scottish song collectors actually to go ‘into the field’ to gather his specimens, was the Highlander Joseph Macdonald. Macdonald emigrated in 1760 – contemporaneously with the start of James Macpherson’s famous but much disputed Ossian project – and it fell to the Revd. Patrick Macdonald to finish and subsequently publish his younger brother’s collection. Karen McAulay traces the complex history of Scottish song collecting, and the publication of major Highland and Lowland collections, over the ensuing 130 years.

Looking at sources, authenticity, collecting methodology and format, McAulay places these collections in their cultural context and traces links with contemporary attitudes towards such wide-ranging topics as the embryonic tourism and travel industry