A Family Story

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry

Bishop Thomas Percy, who appears in the Desborough Study on this site, compiled this extensive collection of early English and Scottish ballads and songs. Percy's Reliques was a popular and influential work that was credited with inspiring poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

This version contains the original 9 books, (in 3 vols), an appendix with numerous further ballads and poems, and a glossary.

If, like me, you are a fan of Dorothy Dunnett's series of books about Frances Crawford, you may be interested to know that several of the poems quoted in the series can be found in the pages of the Reliques.

Scottish Poetry of the Sixteenth Century

The poetry of:

• Sir David Lyndsay
• John Bellenden
• King James the Fifth
• Sir Richard Maitland
• Alexander Scot
• Alexander Montgomerie.

Aucassin and Nicolette, in French and English

Aucassin and Nicolette is a charming medieval French chantefable, or song-story.

This edition contains the medieval French version edited by Gaston Paris, with a translation into English by Eugene Mason, plus a nineteenth century French version by Alexandre Bida, with an English translation by A Rodney MacDonough.