Pleasant Suprise at the Burns Dinner.

**Highlander31** · 29th January 11, 10:02 PM

Before I talk about the dinner, let me give some background. We live outside of a town with a population of approximately 300. We first moved to the area from the San Francisco Bay Area in 2005. While I don’t miss the traffic (rush hour traffic for us, is having to wait for five vehicles to go by,) I do miss the Celtic nights at our favorite pub and the excellent restaurants in the Bay Area.

One of our friends here decided she wanted to have a Burns Dinner this year. However, she didn’t want to have the usual black tie dress. After some discussion, it was decided to have the dinner in Renaissance dress. She reserved the hall for Monday the 24th and made sure the entire town and the surrounding ranches were given an invitation. I was asked to read Burn’s Address to a Haggis.

On Monday evening, we had some forty people show up for the dinner. Only a handful dressed in Renaissance garb. The piper and I were the only two who wore kilts. The dinner was planned as a potluck, and since we live in cattle and sheep country, our friend cooked the haggis from scratch.

Now the pleasant surprise…

Before we settled down to eat, two women approached me. I expected the usual questions about the kilt, but instead, one of the women handed me a copy of Burn's poems. She felt I would enjoy reading it. The book had a leather cover that was literally coming apart, and when I opened it, the pages were starting to fall off the binding. I was unable to find a printing, or copyright date. The title printed on the front is “The Poetical Works of Robert Burns.” It was published by Hurst & Company of New York. The woman thought it had been printed in the mid 1800's.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t one camera at the dinner. So, we don’t have any photos of what was an enjoyable evening. I have posted a couple of photos of the book.

**Whidbey78** · 30th January 11, 12:14 AM

Very very cool. Congrats.

**cessna152towser** · 30th January 11, 03:20 AM

Wow, that's a fabulous gift.
One to treasure!

**Chas** · 30th January 11, 04:05 AM

These unexpected events are always the best. A good bookbinder should be able to rebind it and retain all of the original parts. Worth doing I think. Then you could read from the book at next year's Burns Supper.

Regards

Chas

**KiltedDixon** · 30th January 11, 08:08 AM

Great event! Sounds like a perfect setting for Burns.

**Paul Henry** · 30th January 11, 08:37 AM

It's always nice to get a surprise, and whether the book is a loan or a gift a very thoguhtful idea.
Bookbinder hat on:
It looks as if the leather is suffering form something usually called "red rot" which makes it fragile, the edges crumbly and powdery, sad to say there is very little that can be done to fix this, it can be stablised to consolodate , but it's can't be reversed. It's a very common problem with books from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. It's usually a result of fairly strong chemicals being used to process the leather initially, but with the mass popularisation of books and reading, and the demand that every home should have books, the economics of selling were more important than that of quality.
The book can certainly be re sewn so that it can once again be used easily, but I would suggest that a new "working cover" be used and the original be preserved.
I repaired a copy of Burns several years ago which was in a much worse state than that, and now it can be used freely without fear of dammaging it. I created a completely new cover for it, as the original was so far gone,

some more pictures of it here Robert Burns book I also made a slip case for it and covered it with "Burns" tartan.
Whatever happens the book , I hope you enjoy reading it