The first ever edition of The Tea-Table Miscellany, the seminal collection in defining eighteenth-century Scottish song

Detailed examination of the musical archaeology for each of the songs, providing for the first time comprehensive antecedents for almost all the songs in this critical contribution to the establishment of a Scottish song 'tradition'
Uniquely comprehensive survey of early sources for the tunes of Ramsay's songs
Detailed collation of texts against all extant manuscript sources and relevant printed editions and comprehensive explanatory annotations offering new insights into Ramsay's cultural, historical, political, literary and theatrical contexts

This edition of The Tea-Table Miscellany is the first ever produced, bringing together the four volumes of this collection of songs published between 1723 and 1737. The Tea-Table Miscellany combines traditional Scottish song, works by Allan Ramsay and his contemporaries, together with material from D'Urfey, Playford and the English stage and broadside, in a collection of 399 songs. This edition offers, for the first time, annotations, background, and a study of origins for all the songs and tunes examining both Ramsay's categorisation of the authorship and origin of the song texts and tunes to which it was most likely he was referring. As such, the edition consists of a detailed introduction, the clearly presented song texts, notes on the songs that identify both their print and musical antecedents, musical illustrations that show major variations in the contemporary tunes with which the songs are associated, illustrations of the title pages, and the main design features and ornaments used in Ruddiman's original edition.