Andrew Lang and John Lang (with illustrations by Hugh Thomson), Highways and Byways in the Border, 1913

What is inside?

Originally published in London 1913 by MacMillan & Co., Ltd., this first edition of the Highways and Byways in the Border, is republished here digitally. Macmillan began publishing the Highways & Byways series in 1899 and by 1909 had completed almost twenty publications in the series, which extended across the length and breadth of England, Scotland and Wales, with one publication on Normandy and and another on Ireland. This highly popular series continued until the beginning of the Second World War. In May 2009 Pan Macmillan reissued a one-volume collection of the best of the Highways and Byways series offering a glimpse of the very best of Britain. The original publication of the Highways and Byways in the Border contains more than 440 printed pages, including a map of of the English and Scottish borders, but alas not the route of the authors, brothers Andrew and John Lang, who chose, as other authors in the series did, to take many short trips from a number of central points. This edition also includes some 130 pen and ink illustrations by Hugh Thomson, providing as with all of the Highways and Byways series a wonderful mix of topography, local history and folklore, which perhaps more than ever allows the reader to rediscover parts of Britain that have long disappeared or have been forgotten. Andrew and John Lang, together with Hugh Thomson undertook eighteen trips or excursion on which they reported in the Highways and Byways in the Border, the central points of which were: Berwick; Blackadder; Kelso; Jedburgh; Jed; Ale; Tweed; St. Boswells Green; Galashiels; Selkirk; The Etterick; Yarrow; Upper Tweed; Peebles; Broughton; Liddesdale; Kershopefoot and Bewcastle. Much of the charm a vigour of the Highways and Byways series which has stood the test of time is down to the travellers and in the case of the Border this was no exception. Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was born at Selkirk and obtained a first in classics at Balliol College, Oxford; a prolific Scots man of letters, poet, novelist, literary critic and anthropologist, he is now best remembered as a collector of folk and fairy tales.

Lang published in his lifetime more than seventy books and in the preface to this publication his brother wrote, that Andrew had perhaps an unrivalled knowledge of the memories, legends, ballads, and nature of the border, making him the ideal author for this contribution to the Highways and Byways series, which was published after his death. The Highways and Byways in the Border are replete with more than 130 pen and ink sketches by Hugh Thomson. Born in Coleraine in 1860, by 1883 Thomson had moved to London and had begun working as the illustrator for Macmillan. Amongst his many credits are the illustrations for more than 70 novels, including those of Jane Austen and by the time he drew the illustrations for the Highways and Byways in the Border Thomson was the most popular and successful illustrator of his time. Much of Thomson's work was purchased by Derry City Council and when originals of his pen and ink sketches come up for sale they command high prices and for this reason alone the many books in the Highways and Byways series illustrated by Thomson - which are the majority - are well worth purchasing and this edition is no exception, although Thomson was himself a little concerned about the accuracy of his work, writing that his sketches were taken in 1911 after a period of long drought when all of the rivers were exceptionally low.

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