THE WORKS OF ROBERT BURNS; With an Account of his Life, and a Criticism on his Writings. To which are prefixed, some observations on the character and condition of the Scottish Peasantry.

Second edition. Four volumes. 8vo. Contemporary full polished speckled calf with gilt decorated borders, board edges and spine. Titles in gilt on red morocco labels, volume numbers in gilt on blue morocco labels to the spines. Marbled endpapers. Engraved portrait frontispiece to the first volume and each volume with a woodcut vignette to the title page. A near fine set, the bindings square and firm with just a little rubbing to the extremities, the spines uniformly faded. The contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps.

A handsome set of the second edition of the first collected works of Robert Burns, following the 1800 Liverpool edition. The textual changes between the editions were minor, and the frontispiece is in fact the same plate reused (with its imprint dated 1800). "The content is in the same order, but the differences reflect this new edition, most notably in the new advertisement, the lack of a list of subscribers, and the added appendix" (Lamont). (Lamont 623; Egerer 89).