This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/13/2021
MACPHERSON, James (1736–1796). The Poems of Ossian. London: printed for A. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1790. 2 volumes, 8vo. Contemporary tree calf gilt framed in a Greek key design, crimson spine labels with gilt titles, compartments elegantly tooled in gilt, marbled endpapers, Greek key turn–ins (joints a bit tender, engraved bookplate with previous ownership signatures). Considered to be a monumental literary fraud unparalleled in the history of European scholarly letters, Ossian was entirely a figment of Macpherson’s imagination that was compiled from several fragments of ancient Gaelic poetry that was interspersed within the author’s own work. Lowndes 1736.