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The Border Antiquities of England and Scotland (1814-1817) comprises two large quarto volumes, lavishly illustrated with 94 plates, and appropriately printed, in part by Thomas Davison of London, in part by James Ballantyne of Edinburgh.[1] Notwithstanding its size, however, the work is very unstable, originally issued in several forms not represented by any of the copies I have seen and, of those observed, now existing in variants differing with every exemplar. This account must therefore be regarded as provisional, sufficient I trust to identify the true first edition in book form and its various impressions, sufficient also to expose a number
From the beginning the production of this book was determined very much by accident, very little by design, and attended throughout with many uncertainties. The original announcement, appearing in the February 1812 number of the Scots Magazine (p. 132), sets the precedent, never broken thereafter, of promising more than could be fulfilled. "A splendid original work," it reports, "delineating the Border-Antiquities of England and Scotland, is in great forwardness. The first part will be published on the 31st of March, and a part will be continued every three months." After this firm commitment the first part was delayed until June 1 and then, as the Monthly Literary Advertiser affirms,[2] contained only six of the nine plates required. Though all of those originally included are dated May 1812 only five actually belonged to this number, the sixth to a text not published until the fifth part; so four remained to be issued, one dated September (Warkworth Castle) but published with the second number in November, another dated September (Interior of the Castle at Newcastle) but published with the third number in April 1813, a third in May of that year, and the fourth as late as September. The second part, scheduled to appear three months after the first, was eventually published in November 1812 when, as the Advertiser notes, it also included six plates for a text that now, however, required only three. Of the six, though, only one dated September belonged to this part, the four other September plates to the first, third (2), and fifth numbers, and the one dated November also to the third number. Thus the second part was originally encumbered with five superfluous illustrations and lacked two pertaining to its own text, the two finally issued in September 1813 and June 1815. So for every part the text was invariably delayed and the plates invariably mixed, to the utter confusion of the hapless subscribers. Toward the end, as at the beginning, the Scots Magazine has some hopeful news, now that the engraver, John Greig, would complete his work by December 1815;[3] but this too was premature, because four of his plates are dated January and one November 1816. One of the January plates had been promised as early as November 1814, and properly belongs to the ninth number issued in December of that year.[4]
Much of this confusion may be laid directly to Greig, who seems to have been something of a vagabond, never about when he was wanted, and often unreported at his last known address. In June 1812 he was living at Chapel Street, Pentonville; in September at 261 High Street, Edinburgh; in November at Broomhills, Great Burstead, Essex; in April 1813 not located; in July variously reported at Great Burstead or Pentonville; in May 1814 again not located; and in December at Upper Street, Islington.[5] Once settled at this last address, however, he did not move again, and thereafter his order of engraving more closely approximated—but never quite matched—the order of printing.
Greig, though, was not entirely to blame, for the editors followed no definite plan. To give some distinction to their work they had, by the seventh number, enlisted the aid of Walter Scott—whose name then and thereafter graced every issue—but from first to last they were unable to determine the extent of their edition. In the announcement of the first number it is said that the work would not exceed four volumes, each consisting of eight parts. The first volume, however, contained four parts when issued in July 1813, then nine when issued in December 1814, and finally only six when issued with the second volume in September 1817. By the ninth number the editors were advertising (in a note still represented in the final six-part volume) their intention to limit the work to 16 parts in two volumes; but the second volume eventually comprised parts 7 through 17, and of these, contrary to all announcements early and late, parts 7 to 11 are labeled Vol. I.
Despite the haphazard conduct of the engraver and editors, the printers managed their affairs in a most efficient manner. After Ballantyne of Edinburgh had run off the first two numbers (B-I) the work was for some reason transferred to Davison of London, who completed the remaining fifteen (K-3I), the preliminary sheet for the first volume, and a few sheets of an "Introductory Sketch" (b-e in some copies). While the "Sketch" was being printed in London, however, Scott or one of the other Scots "proprietors" sent to Ballantyne a full Introduction (a-q) which interrupted the other effort in mid-sentence and immediately displaced it. Ballantyne then ran off the Appendix (a-n) and Davison the preliminary sheet for the second volume and the index (o-q). All of this printing, as exhibited by the final issue in book form, was finished in three impressions, each of which may be easily recognized by its size or paper. These impressions are ordered, from one to another, by typographical corrections noted in the bibliographical description and ordered again, within each impression, by the progression of watermarks identified in the accompanying chart.
| Sig. | Printer | Medium Qto. Paper dated | Royal Qto. Paper dated | Super-Royal Qto. Whatman paper dated |
| B-E | [6] Ballantyne | 1809 | [8] 1808 | 1808 |
| F-I | " | " | " | 1811 |
| K-Y | [7] Davison | " | [9] 1808 | " |
| Z-2B | " | " | 1806 | " |
| 2C-2L | " | " | " | 1811 & 1813 |
| [10] i(I) | " | " | " | " |
| 2M-2Q | " | " | " | " |
| 2R-3E | " | " | " | 1813 |
| [11] b-e | " | " | [12] [,,] | " |
| [13] a-g | Ballantyne | 1809 & 1815 | " | 1813 & 1815 |
| [14] a-b | " | " | " | " |
| 3F-3I | Davison | 1815 | undated | undated |
| [13]h-q | Ballantyne | " | " | " |
| [14] c-n | " | " | " | " |
| [15] o-q | Davison | " | " | " |
| i(II) | " | " | " | " |
A comparison between the prices cited in the 1812-1817 advertisements and those noted in the 1824 edition of Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica indicates that by the later date copies were being sold at half the original cost.
| 1812-1817 | 1824 | ||||||||
| Each no. | 2 vols. | 2 vols. | |||||||
| Medium | £ 0 | 10 | 6 | £ 9 | 0 | 0 | £ 4 | 14 | 6 |
| Royal | 0 | 16 | 0 | 13 | 13 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 0 |
| Super-Royal | 1 | 11 | 6 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 3 | 6 |
Still later Bohn states that "this book was republished under the old date with very inferior impressions of the plates, although some are put forth as India proofs."[16] Here the reference is apparently to a fifth edition, printed on paper dated 1831, but now catalogued, for the only copy observed, under the dates 1813-1815. As this copy is defective, the dates have been taken from the engraved title-pages, both of which, together with all other illustrations, were produced on India paper from re-engraved plates. Since the copy lacks all pages carrying any identification, it is impossible to say whether this edition, issued probably on the occasion of Scott's death in 1832, follows the others in listing Constable as one of the publishers and Ballantyne as one of the printers. Should these names appear in a perfect example, however, the reprint may be dismissed as a piracy, for this particular publisher failed in 1826 and his printer went bankrupt immediately thereafter. Here then is an appropriate terminus ad quem not only for all editions legitimately issued, but for all my attempts to describe them.
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