'Poems', 1721 [Library reference: MS.9749].
Allan Ramsay moved to Edinburgh at the start of the 18th century. It was here where he started to write elegies, satires and pastoral poems on a wide range of subjects.
His earliest poems were printed in the form of chapbooks and broadsides. The subject of one of his broadside verses was a landlady of an Edinburgh inn, Lucky Wood. View a digital version of 'Elegy on Lucky Wood in the Cannongate'.
His first authorised volume of poems was published in 1721 by Thomas Ruddiman in Edinburgh.
In the preface Ramsay warns the reader of his Scotticisms 'which perhaps may offend some over-nice Ear'.
'Poems' contained some of his most famous verses including the 'Elegy on Maggy Johnston', and 'Patie and Roger', which became Act 1, Scene 1 of 'The Gentle Shepherd' (1725). Read more about 'The Gentle Shepherd'.
After the publication of the first volume of 'Poems', a second volume of poems was published in 1728.
View a digital version of Allan Ramsay's 'Poems', 1800.