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OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
THE ENTAIL
OR
THE LAIRDS OF GRIPPY
BY
JOHN GALT
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
JOHN AYSCOUGH
HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
NEW YORK, TORONTO, MELBOURNE & BOMBAY
John Galt
| Born, Irvine, Ayrshire | May 2, 1779 |
| Died, Greenock | April 11, 1839 |
‘The Entail’ was first published in 1822. In ‘TheWorld’s Classics’ it was first published in 1913.
INTRODUCTION
For many years I have been wondering why JohnGalt’s works are fallen into such neglect: that theyshould be almost wholly forgotten, even by readersto whom Scott and Jane Austen, Fanny Burney andMiss Edgeworth are indispensable, is what I cannotunderstand. If his Autobiography were not a rarebook, an explanation might suggest itself. For supposingthat the public, before reading The Entail,Annals of the Parish, or The Ayrshire Legatees, hadbeen so unfortunate as to attempt the reading of theAutobiography, no one could be surprised that it madeup its mind to read no more of him. A more tedious,flat, and dull book was never written by a man ofgenius: it i