St. Johnstoun; or, John, the Earl of Gowrie. In Three Volumes.
Edinburgh: McLachlan and Stewart.... 1823. First edition. Wolff describes a binding identical to this one: “Mauve patterned sand-grained cloth, labels (price one guinea), white endpapers,” (Nineteenth Century Fiction, 4178). The Wolff entry does not note the binding as a remainder, though it clearly is. Spines uniformly faded; some fading to top edge as well. Edges untrimmed. Foxing to edges in all volumes (more significantly in volume three) Some dust soiling at fore-edge in volume three. White endpapers with some toning and bubbling. A very good, tight, wide-margined set. Publisher’s mauve cloth remainder binding (no earlier than mid-1830s; see below) with paper spine label. Three volumes, twelvemo. iv, 304; 300; 292 pp. Item #16884
St. Johnstoun is a historical novel based on an alleged conspiracy to assassinate King James of Scotland in 1600. Appropriately for the setting, several of the characters speak in Scots throughout the work. The title refers to Perth, Scotland, which was historically known as St. Johnstoun. The novel is influenced by the work of Sir Walter Scott, with whom Eliza Logan (1779 - 1861) exchanged letters in 1824. Scott was knowledgeable about the conspiracy and its historical context and offered insight into the topic for Logan’s follow-up novel Restalrig; or, The Forfeiture (1829). Though Scott explained that he had “not yet had the good fortune to read” St. Johnstoun, he noted that he knew of Logan’s work before her letter and that St. Johnstoun was a “well-esteemed” novel (Grierson).
We could not find much information on Eliza Logan (1779 - 1861). She lived in Coldingham, Berwickshire on the southeastern coastline of Scotland. Garside et al., English Novel, 123:58. Grierson, ed. The Letters of Sir Walter Scott (1979), vol. 8, pp. 456-459.
Price: $500.00