Dr John Brown & His Sister Isabella, E. M'Laren: Clothbound: 1st Edition

By E. T. M'Laren.

Published by David Douglas, Edinburgh, 1890. First Edition. Clothbound, 59 pages. Includes sepia photograph of Dr John Brown to front end paper, plus some black & white illustrations.

CONDITION
Overall fair condition commensurate with age - see photos. Some wear to corners and spine of clothbound hardcover. Inscription "Lady Thomson Nov 1890" to frontispiece. Otherwise no names or writing.

PREFACE

These Sketches are written by a dear friend of ours, known to all of us from childhood as ' Cecy.' She had unusual opportunities of thoroughly knowing my brother and sister, having been with them in joy and sorrow, in health and sickness, sharing and heightening their happiness, and doing more than we can know or understand to lighten their sadness. What she wrote has been read in manuscript by many of the intimate friends of Dr. John Brown and his sister Isabella all have recognized the faithfulness of the portraits. 

I may quote from a letter written to me by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who knew my brother well, although he never saw him, and loved him as every one did who really knew him : ' I felt every word of it at my heart's root, to use Chaucer's expression. The life itself is so angelically sweet —the nature which won the love of the English and American reading world showed itself so beautifully in his daily life — that no portrait-painter who pictures life in words could ask a more captivating subject. And the writer has wrought her labor of love in a manner worthy of her subject. 

All is simple, natural, truthful ; and the little Memoir leaves an impression as clear and as sweet as if the loving disciple himself had written it. I mean these words to come under the eye of the writer. I trust you will see that they do.' We know that there are very many true friends of my brother and sister who would wish to read the sketches, and to possess a copy of them, to whom, however, this is impossible while they remain in manuscript; our friend has yielded to our wish that they should be printed, and I am sure she will have the thanks of all such. The engraving of Symington Church and Churchyard is from a pencil-drawing made by Ewbank for my father. 

ALEX. CRUM BROWN. 

Edinburgh, Bee. 5, 1889.

(Bindery shelves A4)