Brown calf spines with gilt banding and title. Green cloth boards. Dimensions are for one volume.

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John Brown FRSE FRCPE (22 September 1810 – 11 May 1882) was a Scottish physician and essayist known for his three-volume Horae Subsecivae (Leisure Hours, 1858), containing essays and papers on art, medical history and biography. Best remembered are his dog story “Rab and his Friends” (1859) and his essays “Pet Marjorie” (1863), on Marjorie Fleming, the ten-year-old prodigy and alleged “pet” of Walter Scott, “Our Dogs”, “Minchmoor”, and “The Enterkine”. Brown was half-brother to the organic chemist Alexander Crum Brown.

Brown was the friend of many contemporaries, including Thackeray and Mark Twain. His reputation is based on the two volumes of essays, Horae Subsecivae (Leisure Hours) (1858, 1861), John Leech and Other Papers (1882), Rab and His Friends (1859), and Marjorie Fleming: a Sketch (1863) (generally called Pet Marjorie). His first writing was in response to a request for contributions to the notices of paintings exhibited by the Royal Scottish Academy. The editor of the Scotsman newspaper then asked him to write regularly for the paper. He was 48 years old when he published Rab and His Friends. His writings were philosophical, classical, artistic, medical, of rural life, the Jacobite Rebellion, notable characters, humble folk and canine friends. These were published as a collection in 1858 as Horæ Subsecivæ, which ran to many editions. The first volume deals mainly with the equipment and duties of a physician, the second with subjects outside his profession.