Image from 'In Defence of Ossian'

This image shows the characters of Ossian and Malvina, two characters from the epic cycle 'Ossian' published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson from 1760-1765. Macpherson claimed to have gathered the material of these poems through word-of-mouth and ancient manuscripts, originally in Scottish Gaelic, and translated them into English. There was much debate regarding the validity of Macpherson's claims. Some Irish historians claimed that he had appropriated their heritage in order to promote it as a piece of Scottish history and, furthermore, there was doubt from many parties over whether these manuscripts were 'discovered' at all. Many believed that the Ossian poems were a complete fabrication by Macpherson, while some (including the author of the book in which this image belongs) sprang to his defence.

Ossian is the narrator and supposed 'author' of the stories themselves, depicted at the time of the narrative as an elderly man who has now gone blind and is cared for by his son's lover, Malvina. The two are pictured here in this black-and-white illustration at the beginning of Keith Norman MacDonald's 1906 work 'In defence of Ossian: being a summary of the evidence in favour of the authenticity of the poems'.

[Shelfmark Oss.298]