Tan leather binding with red title plates, gilt decoration and lettering on the spine. Dimensions are for one volume.

F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feel and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

A good edition which has much claim to being in historic error.

William Robertson was a notable 18th-century Scottish historian

Robertson was born at the manse of Borthwick, Midlothian, the son of Rev William Robertson (1686–1745), the local minister, and his wife Eleanor Pitcairn, daughter of David Pitcairne of Dreghorn. He was educated at Borthwick Parish School and Dalkeith Grammar School. The family moved to Edinburgh when his father became appointed minister of Lady Yester’s Church in 1733. His father moved to Old Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh in 1736.

He studied divinity at the University of Edinburgh (1733–41) and was licensed to preach in 1741. He received a Doctor of Divinity in 1759.

The educationalist and writer James Burgh, who founded a dissenting academy on the outskirts of London, was his cousin, describing him as his “much esteemed friend and relation”

One of his most notable works is his History of Scotland 1542–1603, begun in 1753 and first published in 1759. Robertson also contributed, not always fortunately, to the history of Spain and Spanish America in his History of America (1777), “the first sustained attempt to describe the discovery, conquest and settlement of Spanish America since Herrera’s Décadas” and his biography of Charles V. In that work he had “provided a masterly survey of the progress of European society, in which he traced the erosion of the ‘feudal system’ caused by the rise of free towns, the revival of learning and Roman law, and by the emergence of royal authority and the balance of power between states. It was the development of commerce, assisted by law and private property, which was held to be chiefly responsible for the advance in civilisation.”