Scott, Sir Walter & James Ballantyne & Co.
£1,440
Auction: 16 May 2008 at 12:00 BST
Description
Account current, the Trustees of Messrs. James Ballantyne & Co. and Sir Walter Scott, Bt., with John Gibson for expenses incurred on his journey to Paris collecting material for completing Napoleon, and other expenses, 15 May 1827, account submitted to Trustees of Sir Walter Scott by John Gibson for books purchased, 10 Sept. 1825; list of debts due by the proprietors of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal at 31 March 1826 (totalling £3,748); letter concerning the sale of the additional volume (the 9th) of the Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, 29 May 1827; Copy part of letter Mr Gibson to Mr Rees, concerning sale of first edition of Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, 27 Sept. 1826, a quantity of requests and receipts from creditors for payment of dividends from the estate of Sir Walter Scott, account to James Ballantyne from John Young, bookbinder, for binding of books including 30 copies of Woodstock, 18 July 1827; Account submitted by James Ogilvy for examining the state of affairs of Messrs. Ballantyne & Co., 1 June 1827; Valuation of debts of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal, 27 May 1827, Letter from the publishers Longman Rees &c. to John Gibson regarding the sale of Sir Walter Scott's Poetical works, 27 Nov. 1826; Letter from Robert Cadell to John Gibson regarding the printing of 1100 copies of Tales and Romances, 11 Feb. 1838; Letter from John Hughes to John Gibson informing him of the arrival of the conclusion of the manuscript of Chronicles of the Canongate at the printers, 1 Oct. 1827; and many similar other receipts, invoices & documents (quantity)
Footnote
Note: On January 5 1826 the complex web of financial agreements made by the publishers Hurst Robinson & Co., Constable & Co., and James Ballantyne & Co. came to a head when a bill made out by Robinson in favour of Constable could not be honoured on its due date. As a private individual and as a partner in James Ballantyne & Co., Scott found himself with debts of £121,000. To pay off his debts Scott threw himself into a ferocious period of writing, that saw Woodstock, Chronicles of the Canongate and The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, the sales of which brought in £40,000 by Christmas 1827. Most of the papers in the present collection relate to the debts of Sir Walter Scott and James Ballantyne & Co. at this critical juncture in Scott's life.