Notes on Orkney and Zetland: illustrative of the History, Antiquities, Scenery, and Customs of those Islands by Alexander Peterkin - 1822

Edinburgh: Macredie, Skelly, and Company, Princes Street; and T & C Underwood, London, 1822 A rare 1st edition copy of Alex Peterkin's studies of Orkney and Zetland. The title page states that this is Vol I, but no further volumes were published. The work is in 3 parts: A Visit to Orkney in 1818, A Chronicle of Orkney and Zetland, and the Political State of Orkney and Zetland. Peterkin lived in Orkney for 7 years and held the title of Sheriff-Substitute of Orkney. He states that he wrote the work because he found other studies - those by James Wallace and the Rev Dr Barry - 'unsatisfactory in many important particulars'. He was taken to task by Rev Walter Traill for this publication - with Traill accusing him of getting his facts wrong while strongly defending the accuracy of Dr Barry. This copy is in a half leather binding with gilt titles and raised bands and gilt decorative compartments to spine. The boards have a decorative raised leaf design. There is some rubbing but the binding is in very good condition. There is the bookplate of John Davie Manson Robertson, a noted Orcadian, to the front pastedown. Contents: frontispiece; title page; preface pp 1-6; contents pp 1-3; text in 3 sections with one plate pp 1-224; appendix 1-109. There is a small stamp to the rear of the frontispiece and the base of the title page - which has offset to the bottom margin of the frontispiece; and an ink blob which affects the margins of pp 107-110. There is some pencil annotation. Text otherwise clean but with light foxing throughout.