Allan's A-list: The Subscription List to Allan Ramsay's Poems of 1721

Abstract

The new and first complete edition of the works of Allan Ramsay (1684–1758) in six volumes is beginning to draw renewed attention towards this important poet. This essay examines one of the key unexamined puzzles of his career: how an Edinburgh wigmaker apparently without any advantage of birth and connexions succeeded in gathering an enormously distinguished subscription list — including nearly sixty peers and eight dukes — for his first key collection of poems. The answer lies both in the powerful and interlocking networks which Ramsay had inherited, cultivated, or adopted and in the particular culture and political moment in post-Union Edinburgh in which he came to maturity. Ramsay's key network groups are discussed under four headings: Jacobites; friends and clubs; local dignitaries, family links, professionals and merchants; patronage and wider artistic networks.