Description
Douglas, Robert, Sir 1694 – 1770. The Peerage of Scotland, Containing An Historical and Genealogical Account of the Nobility of that Kingdom, from their Origin to the Present Generation: Collected from the Public Records, and Ancient Chartuleries of this Nation, the Charters, and Other Writings of the Nobility, and the Works of our Best Historians. Illustrated wth Copper-Plates. By Robert Douglas, Esq. Edinburgh: Printed by R. Fleming, and Sold by him, and the Other Booksellers in Edinburgh; and at London by A. Miller, R. Baldwin, D. Wilson, and T. Durham. M, DCC, LXIV. [1764] Imperial quarto, 14 ¾ in x 9 ½ in; 37.5 cm x 23.3 cm. ESTC T148734
This complete copy has multiple sequential errors of pagination. P. 170 is paginated as 107; p. 355 as 353; p. 387 as 385; p. 404 as 396; p. 410 as 402; p.477 as 461; p. 497 as 479; p. 498 as 480; p. 571 as 551; p.578 as 556; p. 579 as 557. The book was repaginated by the bookseller in pencil, the correct page numbers written in on each page in brackets. [xi (verso of xi blank); 740 pages; 10 full-page plates of coats of arms, 12 to a plate; 1 blank] At page 507, the lower three sewing stations were skipped. The stitches for the three upper stations are secure. Bound with six raised bands, with a leather spine on contemporary marbled paper-covered pasteboard covers, with a gilt lettered label. The leather hinges are cracked, but the covers remain secure. The leather spine is chipped and was once taped. Now, it appears to have been reinforced with colorless adhesive. Pages 387 and 388 are damp stained from an early repair to what appears to be a paper flaw. The reinforcement was done with laid paper, which was carefully arranged around the margin notes on p. 388. Another paper flaw was left unrepaired at the foot of p. 387. At the bottom of p. 731, there is a period repair with laid paper over an old tear in the lower margin.
This copy has the signature of Sir John Halkett 1720 – 1793, the Fourth Baron of Pitfirrance on the titlepage and the bookplate of his Pitfirrane Castle library, with the motto, “Fides Sufficit.” Below the shelf mark on the initial blank “C-1” is the pencil signature of Elizabeth “Betty” G.C. Menzies dated by her in 1970.
Elizabeth Grant Cranbrook Menzies, photographer-historian was born in Princeton, New Jersey to Princeton University professor, Alan Wilfrid Cranbrook Menzies and Mary Isabella Dickson Menzies in 1915 and died there in 2003. Growing up in Princeton the only child of a Scottish-born physical chemist and a Scottish mother, who was a gifted pianist, artist and, also, an amateur photographer, Miss Menzies had an early formative exposure to both scientific and artistic methods. Following her parents’ wishes, she graduated from Miss Fine’s School in Princeton, Miss Menzies began taking pictures of her family’s friends as a teenager, among these early images are such notables as the Oswald Veblens and the C. J. Davissons. Having been taught the basics of taking and developing photographs by her chemist father, Miss Menzies began a love affair with the camera that was to last for more than sixty years.
In 1936, at the age of 21, she won a First Award and two Second Awards at the Fourth Annual Exhibition at Princeton for her celebrated portrait Albert Einstein in His Study 1939. This image was taken for Scientific American in commemoration of Einstein’s sixtieth birthday. C. J. Davisson, a fellow Nobel laureate and friend of both the sitter and the photographer was instrumental in persuading the camera-shy Einstein to allow his picture to be taken. It also launched Miss Menzies’ career as a free-lance photographer. On May 21, 1963, Miss Menzies was awarded a Tercentenary Medal for this portrait by the State of New Jersey. In 1949, Miss Menzies was one of seven exhibitors at the Philadelphia Salon of Photography, exhibiting The Sunset of Life. While working in Princeton in the 1940s and 50s as a free-lance photographer, contributing many images to the Princeton Alumni Weekly, she was hired by the Index of Christian Art as their staff photographer, a position that took her on trips abroad, collecting images for the Index archive.
During those years, Miss Menzies began quite spontaneously keeping a photographic record of the early American architecture in Princeton and elsewhere in New Jersey, especially as the historic buildings began to fall to the developer’s wrecking ball. Having taken her first architectural images as early as 1935, this was a natural progression in her development as a photographer. Later, when architectural history became a determined interest, she came under the tutelage of Princeton Professor Donald Drew Egbert, Professor of the History of Architecture at Princeton University. Attending his lectures by permission, in preparation for her first book, Princeton Architecture, a Pictorial History of Town and Campus, Princeton University Press, 1967, Miss Menzies received the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History in 1968 for this, her first book. Miss Menzies other books are: Millstone Valley, Rutgers University Press, 1968, for which she earned a Certificate of Commendation from the American Association for State and Local History in 1970, and for which she also received the New Jersey Association of Teachers of English Award in 1970; Passage Between Rivers, Rutgers University Press, 1976, which earned her the Author Citation from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1978; and, perhaps her most out-spoken title, Before the Waters, the Upper Delaware Valley, Rutgers University Press, 1966, made very clear her preservationist views. In 1971, Miss Menzies received a Diploma from The Two Thousand Women of Achievement for Distinguished Achievement. In 1966, on the deaths of both of her parents, Miss Menzies stopped working for the Princeton Alumni Weekly. From 1954 to 1980, she was the staff photographer for the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University.
See: Who’s Who of American Women with World Notables, Sixth edition, 1970-71, and the World Who’s Who of Women 1973. Her photographs have appeared in national publications. Among the publications publishing her photographers were: Life, May 19, 1958, Vol. 44, No. 20, “Sammy”; The Saturday Evening Post, May 17, 1958, Vol. 230, No. 46, “Francis Henry Taylor”; Architectural Record, May 1958; Fortune, 1958, “Prof. Tukey”; The Philadelphia Inquirer, “Today,” April 1956; Holiday, July, 1950; Time, August 1948, “New Library.” Upon retirement from Princeton University in 1980, then-president William Bowen awarded Miss Menzies with the Seal of Princeton University Medal.
For more on the Halket family, see Family Gallery | Halket and Sir John Halkett 1720 – 1793 | Family Gallery
