This is a mid-19th-century A. & C. Black (Edinburgh) multi-volume edition of The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., illustrated with steel engravings after watercolours by J. M. W. Turner. The series forms part of the long publishing tradition associated with Scott’s works after his death, inspired in part by the activities of the Abbotsford Club—founded in the 1830s to honour Scott’s literary legacy and preserve historical texts connected with his Abbotsford estate. Each volume in this edition contains two principal illustrations: a full-page steel-engraved frontispiece and a title-page vignette, both engraved by leading 19th-century craftsmen. In the case of The Lady of the Lake (Volume III), the frontispiece depicts Loch Katrine, and the title vignette shows Loch Achray, both engraved by William Miller after Turner’s celebrated landscape designs. Turner’s series of Scottish views, originally commissioned in the 1830s for earlier Cadell editions, became iconic visual companions to Scott’s romantic poetry and were reused in later A. & C. Black printings such as this one.

Sir Walter Scott, J.M.W. Turner (illustrator), William Miller (illustrator)

The Lady of the Lake