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The Reader, by Alexander Ver Huell, c. 1880

Book of the Month -- April 2025 

This was the first complete history of Scotland to be written. Hector Boece (1465–1536) compiled it from earlier chronicles and published it in Latin in the year 1527 as Scotorum Historiae a Prima Gentis Origine cum Aliarum Rerum et Gentium Illustratione Non Vulgari. [A History of The Scots from Their First Beginning with an Account of Other Matters of Importance.] After introductory material including a description of the Island of Great Britain, and Scotland in particular; and several poems; it narrates the history of Scotland from its legendary beginnings down to the death of James I in 1436. It was a major source for Holinshed's Chronicles, mined by Shakespeare for his story of Macbeth.  In 1536 it was translated from Latin into Scots by John Bellenden. This translation is  rather a free one and includes numerous episodes not in the original; it can be considered as a separate work. The 16th Century Scots is difficult or in some cases impossible for a 21st Century Anglophone to read, so there was a need for a modern English translation, which we have provided here.

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The Ex-Classics project was founded in 2000 to fill an unmet need.  When reading the blurb etc. to a book by Charles Dickens or Charlotte Bronte, say, we would often come across sentences like "Favourite reading included . . ."  If  it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us. So off we go to the library or bookshop, to be met first with blank stares and then with the information that the book has been out of print for decades. Our first two books were Gil Blas and Hudibras, which are prime examples of thisThis web site is dedicated to rescuing these works from obscurity and making them available online, both for reading directly, and for downloading.

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