Selected Bibliography:
James Burnett,
Lord Monboddo
(1714-1799)
Last revised 22 October 1999
- There is no primary or secondary bibliography, but a
beginning can be found in Emily L. Cloyd, James Burnett, Lord
Monboddo (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972), 181-87.
Individual Works
- Preface to Account of a Savage Girl Caught Wild in the
Woods of Champagne, ed. William Robertson (Edinburgh, 1768).
- Of the Origin and Progress of Language, 6 vols.
(Edinburgh and London, 1773-92). Often reprinted. Facsimile
edition of the 1774-92 volumes, New York: Garland, 1970; Menston:
Scolar Press. Abridged German translation by E. A. Schmid of
vols. 1-3, Des Monboddos Werk von dem Ursprunge und Fortgange
der Sprache, intro. by J. G. Herder (Riga, 1785).
- Antient Metaphysics, 6 vols. (Edinburgh and London,
1779-99). Facsimile edition, New York: Garland, 1977.
- "Advertisement" to John Brown, Letters upon the Poetry and
Music of the Italian Opera, Addressed to a Friend (Edinburgh,
1789). Second edition, London, 1971.
- Citations from Monboddo in the notes to The Poetical Works
of John Milton, ed. H. J. Todd, 6 vols. (London, 1801).
- "Reports of Decisions of the Court of Session, 1738-68," in
A Supplement to [W. M. Morrison's] Dictionary of Decisions of
the Court of Session, ed. M. P. Brown, 5 vols. (Edinburgh,
1826), 5:651-941.
Correspondence
- There is no edition of Monboddo's correspondence, but in
addition to the extant MS letters, printed ones from and to him
are found in:
- Joshua Steele, An Essay towards Establishing the Melody
and Measure of Speech (London, 1775). Second edition, amended
and enlarged, published as Prosodia Rationalis (London,
1779).
- J. S. Harford, The Life of Thomas Burgess, D.D.
(London, 1840).
- Edward Ford, "Lord Monboddo and Mrs Garrick," National
Review 2 (1883): 106-12.
- Forbes W. Gray, "A Forerunner of Darwin," Fortnightly
Review n.s. 125 (1929): 112-22.
- Rose Mary Davis, The Good Lord Lyttelton (Bethlehem,
Penna., 1939).
- Robert T. Fitzhugh, Robert Burns, His Associates and
Contemporaries (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press,
1943).
Selected Writings
- No selection of Monboddo's writings has been published, but
salient passages illustrating his major ideas on social
philosophy are presented in Readings in Early
Anthropology, ed. J. S. Slotkin (London: Methuen, 1965),
4:447-53.
Archives
- There are two reports on these materials:
- Sir William Fraser, The Manuscripts Relating to Lord
Monboddo, at Monboddo, in Kincardineshire, Fourth Report of the
Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Part I (London:
MHSO, 1874).
- Sir William Fraser, Second Report on the Manuscripts of
Lord Monboddo, Sixth Report of the RCHM, Part I (London:
HMSO, 1877).
- The largest collection is now in the National Library of
Scotland, Edinburgh, incluidng Monboddo Papers, Folio Notebooks;
also MS 5738.109 (box 4) -- essay on the Orang-utan, and MS 24505
-- essays on language; and letters:
- To John Bell: MS 588, f. 1332;
- To Robert Liston, 5567, f 150;
- From/to Lyttelton: 5738.22.3.22, 5738.13 (Box 1);
- From/to Sir John Pringle: 5738.22.3.22, 5738.22.3.25;
- Grim Thorkelin correspondence: Accession 3129, MS of Antient
Metaphysics, vol. 4.
- Other archives, mainly of correspondence:
- Aberdeen University Library: mainly correspondence with James
Beattie;
- Advocates' Library, Edinburgh (Faculty Minutes, vols.
1-2; Records of the Curators of the Library, 1738-67);
- Birmingham Reference Library: Lyttelton correspondence;
- Bodleian Library, Oxford: Thomas Burgess, Thomas Cadell, and
Richard Price;
- British Library, London: Cadell and William Davies and Eliza
Berkeley;
- Edinburgh University Library: Dugald Stewart, John Hope and
John Young MSS, Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Thorkelin;
- Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.: Mrs. Garrick;
- Hyde Collection, Somerville, N.J.: Cadell and Davies, Hannah
More;
- Pierpont Morgan Library: Cadell;
- Museum of Natural History, South Kensington, London: Sir John
Banks;
- Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh: The Douglas Cause;
- Yale University Library: The Boswell Papers.
- David Hume, Letters, ed. J. Y. T. Greig, 2 vols.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), 2:277 and n.
- James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, ed. G. B.
Hill, rev. L. F. Powell, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1934-64), 5:76-83.
- Dugald Stewart, Biographical Memoirs of Adam Smith,
William Robertson, and Thomas Reid (Edinburgh, 1811), 313-16.
- George Brunton and David Haig, An Historical Account of
the Senators of the College of Justice (Edinburgh, 1832),
531-33.
- John Kay, A Series of Original Portraits and Character
Etchings, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1842), 1:18-21.
- Charles Neaves (Lord Neaves), "The Memory of Monboddo: An
Excellent New Song," Blackwood's Magazine 90 (Sept. 1861):
363-64.
- William Anderson, The Scottish Nation, 3 vols.
(Edinburgh and London, 1863), 1:474-97.
- Ramsay of Ochtertyre, Scotland and Scotsmen in the
Eighteenth Century, ed. A. Allardyce, 2 vols. (Edinburgh,
1888), 1:350-61.
- Roll of Alumni in the University of Aberdeen and King's
College, Aberdeen, 1598-1860, ed. Peter J. Anderson
(Aberdeen, 1900).
- Ian Simpson Ross, Lord Kames and the Scotland of His
Day (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972).
General Works
- William Angus Knight, Lord Monboddo and Some of His
Contemporaries (London: John Murray, 1900).
- Henry Gray Graham, Scottish Men of Letters of the
Eighteenth Century (London, 1901-1908), 188-98.
- Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, vol.
1, The Rise of Modern Paganism (London, 1967); vol. 2,
The Science of Man (London, 1970).
- Ian Simpson Ross, Lord Kames and the Scotland of His
Day (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972).
- Ernest Campbell Mossner, The Life of David Hume, 2nd
ed. (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1980).
- Iain Gordon Brown, Building for Books: The Architectural
Evolution of the Advocates' Library, 1689-1925 (Edinburgh,
1989).
Law
- T. B. Smith, Studies Critical and Comparative
(Edinburgh, 1962).
- John W. Cairns, "Importing Our Lawyers from Holland:
Netherlands Influences on Scots Law and Lawyers in the Eighteenth
Century," in Scotland and the Low Countries 1124-1994, ed.
Grant G. Simpson (Aberdeen, 1996), 136-53.
Language
- Emily L. Cloyd, "Lord Monboddo, Sir William Jones, and
Sanskrit," American Anthropologist 71 (1969): 1134-35.
- Hans Aarsleff, The Study of Language in England,
1780-1860 (London, 1983).
- P. Bergheaud, "Tensions paradigmatique et objets
polémiques chez Adam Smith et Lord Monboddo: le pluralisme
epistémologique du 18 siècle comme objets
d'histoire," in Matériaux pour une histoire des
théories linguistiques, ed. S. Auroux et al.
(Lille, 1984).
- Stephen K. Land, The Philosophy of Language in Britain:
Major Theories from Hobbes to Thomas Reid (New York, 1986).
- Rüdiger Schreyer, "'Pray What Language Did Your Wild
Couple Speak, When They First Met?' -- Language and the Science
of Man in the Scottish Enlightenment," in The "Science of Man"
in the Scottish Enlightenment: Hume, Reid and Their
Contemporaries, ed. Peter Jones (Edinburgh, 1989), 149-77.
- Frans Plank, "Adam Smith: Grammatical Economist," in Adam
Smith Reviewed, ed. Peter Jones and Andrew S. Skinner
(Edinburgh, 1992), 21-55.
- Jan Noordegraaf, "The 'Schola Hemsterhuisiana' Revisited," in
History and Rationality: The Skövde Papers in the
Historiography of Linguisitcs, ed. Klaus D. Dutz and
Kjell-Åke Forsgren (Münster, 1995), 133-58.
- Jan Noordegraaf, "Dutch Philologists and General Linguistic
Theory: Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Eighteenth Century," in
Linguists and Their Diviersions: A Festschrift for R. H.
Robins on His 75th Birthday, ed. Vivien Law and Werner
Hüllen (Münster, 1996), 211-43.
- P. Chezaud, "Lord Monboddo et le débat sur l'origine
de langage," in Le Dix-huitième siècle
autrement (Grenoble, 1996).
- P. Chezaud, Lord Monboddo, lecteur du "Discours dur
l'origine de l'inégalité" de Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, Études écossaises no. 4 (Grenoble,
1997).
- Lieve Jooken, The Linguistic Conceptions of Lord
Monboddo (Leuven, 1999).
Anatomy, Natural History, Anthropology, and
Evolution
- Arthur O. Lovejoy, "Monboddo and Rousseau," in Essays on
the History of Ideas (New York, 1960), 38-61.
- Arthur O. Lovejoy, "Herder: Progressionism without
Transformism," in Forerunners of Darwin, 1745-1859, ed.
Bentley Glass et al. (Baltimore, 1968), 207-21.
- Oscar Sherwin, "A Man with a Tail -- Lord Monboddo,"
Journal of the History of Medicine 23 (1958): 435-67.
- John C. Greene, The Death of Adam: Evolution and Its
Impact on Western Thought (Ames: Univ. of Iowa Press, 1959).
- Frank Tinland, L'Homme sauvage: Homo ferus et homo
sylvestris (Paris, 1968).
- Antonio Verri, Lord Monboddo dalla metafisica
all'antropologia (Ravenna, 1975).
- Robert Wokler, "Apes and Races in the Scottish Enlightenment:
Monboddo and Kames on the Nature of Man," in Philosophy and
Science in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. Peter Jones
(Edinburgh, 1988), 145-68.
Please send comments and corrections to biblio@c18.org.