The Acts and Deeds of the Gallant Sir William Wallace, Knight of Ellerslie. With the Relationes of Arnold Blair, Sir William's Chaplain

Edinburgh: Robert Freebairn, 1758. First edition thus. It is generally agreed that while the sheets for this edition were printed in 1714, the books were not bound and sold until 1758. This copy lacking the title page, but with an early facsimile bound in, showing the date as 1714, not 1758.

Bound in quarter diced calf over dark blue paper boards. Binding holding fine, but fairly worn at the corners and spine ends with a bookplate removed from the front paste-down and a shelf-location plate on the rear paste-down. Quarto (pages 222 x 175 mm) collating: 403, 79; complete but for the title page. Printed mostly in black letter with light foxing (truncated) throughout.

"To me, the editions printed by Freebairn appear more correct than any of the preceding ones, and his Wallace even preferable to the Perth edition, A. 1790; as, bating the liberty used with regard to the orthography, they, in a great variety of instances, give the sense of the original writers more accurately, having evidently been collated with the MSS. of The Bruce and Wallace in the Advocates' Library." (John Jamieson, editor of "The Bruce; and, Wallace" 1820)

"Freebairn retains the merit of being the first to attempt a critical edition (Macdiarmid 1968-9: I: xii)." (The Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, Vol. 2). (Inventory #: 1879)