The Correspondence Of James Beattie

James Beattie (1735-1803) was a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. He was a popular philosophical opponent of David Hume, and through his famous poem "The Minstrel" he had a lasting influence on Wordsworth and the Romantics. Beattie lived among the great literati of the time, and his wide correspondence provides a treasure trove of information about his contemporaries. For the past 200 years, our principal access to this material has been William Forbes's two-volume "Life and Writings of James Beattie" (1806). Useful though Forbes's work has been, it represents only the tip of the iceberg of Beattie's vast correspondence. And because Forbes was guided by his personal friendship with Beattie, he left out many of the most controversial and crucial pieces.Roger Robinson has gone far beyond Forbes, giving details of over 2000 manuscript letters housed in the University of Aberdeen Library, the National Archives and National Library of Scotland and 14 other locations across the world. Volume 1 of his new edition summarizes the content of every known letter to and from Beattie in chronological sequence, which for the first time can be read as a coherent story. Volumes 2 to 4 contain full transcriptions of around 350 of the most important letters written by Beattie. These provide major new insights into Beattie's life, the composition of his works, and his relations with the leading Scottish and English literary figures of his time. Volume 4 also contains an index of correspondents with biographical notes, and a full index to the content of the letters.