James Watson's Choice Collection of Comic and Serious Scots Poems

James Watsons Choice Collection is the first known printed collection of Older Scots verse and as such a milestone in Scottish literary history This eclectic mixture of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century pieces along with some earlier works, has examples from many key genres in Scottish literary history, such as the beast poem, the mock testament, the elegy, the peasant brawl poem, and the drinking song. Harriet Harvey Woods commentary provides considered textual analysis of all the pieces in a fascinating collection which suggests links both back to Dunbar and Lyndsay, and forward to Burns and Garioch.