The Gentle Shepherd

In Enlightenment Edinburgh, Allan Ramsay (c. 1684 1758) was a foundationally important poet, dramatist, song collector, theatre owner, cultural leader in art and music, and innovative entrepreneur in many spheres from language to libraries. This series, the result of an international research project, presents Ramsay’s complete works in a dependable scholarly edition for the first time, thereby illuminating a body of work crucial in its own right and essential to both the Scottish Enlightenment and the Vernacular Revival associated with Fergusson, Burns and others. Ramsay’s pastoral comedy The Gentle Shepherd (1725; 1729) went through over a hundred editions, was performed many hundreds of times and inspired a wide range of visual representations and critiques. Although it is one of the most important printed texts in Scots literature, there has never been a scholarly edition which does justice to its complicated genesis and to the music of its many songs. This groundbreaking and definitive edition will be welcomed by scholars, teachers and practitioners of literature, drama and music, and opens up new avenues for research and performance.