Scope and Contents Autograph Letter Signed from Robert M. Ballantyne to his wife Jane Grant ("my darling Jeanie"), giving her all the news - "Mrs Hislop ... is chatting beside me with Isabella so it's not easy to write ... Last night we all went to the Tempce conversazione in the Museum, and on presenting my card I was received as a 'distinguished guest'!!! so I hope you are properly impressed. It was a great turn out with band and pipers, but the speaking was not audible ... I was surprised at suddenly...

Content Description A full-length autograph manuscript (386 leaves) of R. M. Ballantyne’s Erling the Bold: A Tale of the Norse Sea-Kings, a novel of Viking life, inspired by Icelandic sagas. This is very much a working manuscript with alterations, clarifications and revisions to every aspect of the text including changes to characterisation, dialogue, narrative development and descriptive writing. From the evidence of this manuscript, this was Bannatyne’s first draft of the...

Scope and Contents The collection consists of two sketchbooks by Scottish writer R. M. Ballantyne:1. The first sketchbook is made of approximately 85 leaves, almost all of which bear original drawings (pencil, ink and ink-and wash), cartoons, sketches and preliminary ideas. Some are highly finished images intended for a subsequently abandoned book of his fishing trip to Norway, as well as material for the published 'Freaks on the Fells'. On the first blank is Ballantyne's presentation inscription...