1933 Scarce Book- The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies by R. Kirk
A particularly appealing, scarce 1933 edition of Robert Kirk’s celebrated seventeenth-century account of Scottish fairy belief, complete with the scarce original dust jacket and the atmospheric D. Y. Cameron frontispiece.
Author: Robert Kirk, M.A., Minister of Aberfoyle. Commentary by Andrew Lang. Introduction by R. B. Cunninghame Graham.
Title: The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies.
Publisher: Stirling: Eneas Mackay, 1933.
Edition: 1933 edition. The work was written in manuscript in 1691, first printed in 1815 in an edition of 100 copies, and published again in 1893 in an edition of 500 copies. This edition reprints Andrew Lang’s commentary from the 1893 edition and includes an introduction by R. B. Cunninghame Graham.
Language: English.
Size: 8.5 x 6.5 inches.
Pages: 128 pages.
Binding: Very good original publisher’s violet cloth binding, lettered in black to the spine and upper board. Hinges firm, with only light general wear and minor rubbing as shown. Complete with the scarce original printed dust jacket, decorated in red, black, and violet on cream. The dust jacket is in good condition only, with age toning, edge wear, small chips and tears, and multiple old paper repairs to the reverse. Now protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content, bright, tight, and generally clean, with occasional light age toning and scattered minor spotting as shown.
Illustrations: Complete with the frontispiece, The Hill of the Fairies at Aberfoyle, reproduced from a watercolour drawing by Sir D. Y. Cameron, R.A.
Estimate: (USD 800-1000)
The book: Written in 1691, The Secret Commonwealth is one of the most remarkable and influential early accounts of Scottish supernatural belief. Robert Kirk, a Gaelic-speaking minister at Aberfoyle, attempted to describe systematically the hidden world of elves, fairies, spirits, second sight, and the mysterious beings whom Highland tradition placed alongside ordinary human existence.
Rather than treating these traditions simply as tales, Kirk recorded them with the seriousness of an observer documenting a living belief system. The resulting work occupies a fascinating position between folklore, theology, early anthropology, psychical inquiry, and the history of the supernatural. Its descriptions of the subterranean or invisible people became an important source for later writers and folklorists interested in Celtic fairy traditions.
This attractive 1933 edition is particularly desirable for its combination of Kirk’s text, Andrew Lang’s important scholarly commentary, R. B. Cunninghame Graham’s introduction, and Sir D. Y. Cameron’s evocative view of the Fairy Hill at Aberfoyle. The survival of the original illustrated dust jacket adds considerably to the appeal of this copy.
The author: Robert Kirk (1644–1692) was a Scottish minister, Gaelic scholar, translator, and folklorist. A minister at Balquhidder and later Aberfoyle, he was deeply familiar with Gaelic language and Highland traditions. His reputation rests principally on The Secret Commonwealth, composed shortly before his death. Kirk himself subsequently became the subject of folklore: according to a celebrated tradition, he did not truly die but was taken away by the fairy people after collapsing on the Fairy Hill at Aberfoyle, giving his life and work an enduring place in Scottish supernatural legend.
The commentator: Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a Scottish writer, folklorist, classical scholar, and one of the most influential students of mythology and fairy tradition of his generation. His 1893 edition and commentary helped restore Kirk’s extraordinary text to wider attention and placed it within the developing scholarly study of folklore and supernatural belief.