<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Full title:</b> Ossian, Fils de Fingal, Barde du 3e Siècle; Poésies galliques, traduites sur l’anglais de Macpherson, par Letourneur. Nouvelle Édition, Augmentée des Poëmes d’Ossian et de quelques autres Bardes; traduits sur l’anglais de J. Smith, pour servir de Suite à l’Ossian de Letourneur; Et précédée d’une Notice sur l’état actuel de la question relative à l’authenticité des poëmes d’Ossian, par M. Ginguené, membre de l’Institut de France. Tome deuxième.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;">Second of 2 volumes in 8vo. ff. 3, pp. 553, [1]. Contemporary marbled calf. Single gilt fillet round sides. Later crowned cipher of Maria Alexandrovna stamped in gilt on upper covers. Spines richly gilt, red and green morocco lettering pieces on spines. Includes frontispiece portraits.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enlarged edition from the library of Maria Alexandrovna, Empress of Russia (1824-1880). James Macpherson (1736-1796), was perhaps the most influential of all forgers </span><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:15.3333px;">in literary and cultural terms</span><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">. Repeatedly encouraged by the Edinburgh literati, though professedly reluctant to continue his researches into Gaelic literary remains in remote Highland and Hebridean outposts, Macpherson soon came up with an astonishingly extensive find: a 19,000-word epic by ‘Ossian,’ a blind bard of third-century Argyllshire, recounting the fading glory of his warrior-brethren among the Highland clans. By 1800 some if not all Ossianic verse had been translated into ten languages, a figure that had risen to twenty-six by 1860.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:15.3333px;">On pp. [5]-38 in the first volume,</span><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:15.3333px;"> </span><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">Pierre-Louis Ginguené (1748-1816), the famous French literary author and historian, provides his analysis of the authenticity of the poems; it is printed here for the first time. After a long account of the various theories put forward by many scholars and critics, Ginguené comes down in favor of their authenticity.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/permalink/01JHU_INST/t3c16/alma991001405529707861" rel="ugc nofollow">Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.</a></span></span></p>