Richard Sher

New Jersey Institute of Technology, History, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History

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Address: Federated Dept. of History (NJIT & Rutgers-Newark)
New Jersey Institute of Technology
University Heights
Newark, NJ 07102-1982

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Ekaterina Kislova

National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (HSE), Moscow, Russia

Alejandra B Osorio

Wellesley College

Emrah Safa Gürkan (ESG)

Istanbul 29 Mayis University

Florin Curta

University of Florida

Michaela Valente

Università degli Studi "La Sapienza" di Roma

Stephanie Seul

University of Bremen

Giampaolo Salice

Università degli Studi di Cagliari

Benjamin Straumann

University of Zurich, Switzerland

Fania Oz-Salzberger

University of Haifa

Liesbeth Corens

Queen Mary, University of London

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Other by Richard Sher

Hugh Blair (1718–1800): An Annotated Bibliography

by Zubin Meer and Richard Sher

Version 2.0, 4 July 2016

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Adam Ferguson (1723–1816): An Annotated Bibliography

by Zubin Meer and Richard Sher

Version 2.1, 4 July 2016

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Papers by Richard Sher

Those Scotch Imposters and their Cabal": Ossian and the Scottish Enlightenment

Man and nature, 1982

Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y ... more Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d'utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. Many a voice and many a harp, in tuneful sounds arose. Of FingaFs noble deeds they sung; of FingaFs noble race: And sometimes, on the lovely sound, was heard the name of Ossian. James Macpherson's Fingal (1761) Although the name of Ossian was heard a great deal during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it has since become little more than a historical curiosity. We are amazed and amused that so many intelligent, well-educated people could have sincerely believed that the works of Ossian were both completely authentic and (what is perhaps more astounding) aesthetically unsurpassed -even by Homer. 1 We have become accustomed to regarding this strange phenomenon as a case of deliberate deception: the public was simply fooled by James Macpherson, a brash young Highlander who cleverly tricked the literary world into accepting compositions that were in part distortions of genuine Gaelic poems and ballads, in part his own creation, as the original poetry of a legendary thirdcentury Highland bard called Ossian. The world of letters fell for the ruse, so the story goes, because Macpherson was shrewd enough to endow his Ossianic poetry with the primitivism and pathos for which a vast audience of preromantics yearned. Ossian was Homer cleaned up for eighteenth-century tastes and then sold to an unsuspecting public by an unscrupulous entrepreneur. 2 This literary "confidence-man" explanation for the genesis and vogue of Ossian is not exactly false, but neither is it entirely true. For one thing, while Macpherson alone produced the Ossianic "translations" themselves, in a very real sense his Ossian was also the product of a "cabal" of Edinburgh literary men who provided the necessary inspiration, incentive, financial support, editorial assistance, publishing connections, and emotional encouragement. At the heart of this Ossianic "cabal" stood a coterie of Presbyterian clergymen affiliated with the Moderate party in the Church of Scotland -John Home, Hugh Blair, Adam Ferguson, William Robertson, and Alexander Carlyle -but these "Moderate literati" were at various times assisted by other Scottish literati and gentlemen, the most important of whom seem to have been Robert Chalmers and Patrick Murray, Lord Elibank.

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The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and America

Over the past two decades, Richard B. Sher's articles and books have attracted the attention... more

The Enlightenment and the Book: Scottish Authors and Their Publishers in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Ireland, and America

Over the past two decades, Richard B. Sher's articles and books have attracted the attention... more

Alexander Carlyle Journal of Northern Scotland - Accession 1545 M754 (811)

This collection consists of a booklet titled, Journal of a tour to the North of Scotland: Alexand... more This collection consists of a booklet titled, Journal of a tour to the North of Scotland: Alexander Carlyle with an introduction by Richard B. Sher which was published by Old Aberdeen: Centre for Scottish Studies, University of Aberdeen in circa. 1983. This typescript copy of Rev. Alexander Carlyle’s (1722-1805) trek from Inveresk (near Edinburg) to Inverness from August 26, 1765 through September 9, 1765 details his experiences during his tour. The tour took Carlyle through from Inveresk, Edinburg, Kincross, Perth, Dundee, Arbroath, Montrose; Bervie, Stonehaven, Old Aberdeen, New Aberdeen, Oldmeldrum, Banff, Cullen, Fochabers, Elgin, Forres, Nairn, Cawdor, Fort George, and then Inverness. Rev. Alexander Carlyle (1722-1805) was a Scottish church leader who served 57 years as the minister of Inveresk.https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/manuscriptcollection_findingaids/2716/thumbnail.jp

Bookscape: Geographies of Printing and Publishing in London before 1800, by James Raven

The English Historical Review, Feb 1, 2016

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Lothian, William (1740–1783), Church of Scotland minister and historian

The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots' Invention of the Modern World/The Scottish Enlightenment: The Historical Age of the Historical Nation (Book)

The English Historical Review, 2003

Page 1. SHORTER NOTICES 2003 1397 EHR, cxviii. 479 (Nov. 2003) The Scottish Enlightenment: The Sc... more

The authorship of Sister Peg revisited: a reply to David Raynor’s response to ‘Let Margaret Sleep’

History of European Ideas

Fitzpatrick, Macleod and Page (eds), The Wodrow-Kenrick Correspondence, 1750–1810. Volume 1: 1750–1783

The Scottish Historical Review, 2021

Alexander Carlyle Journal of Northern Scotland - Accession 1545 M754 (811)

Early Editions of Adam Smith’s Books in Britain and Ireland, 1759–1804

Routledge, Jul 1, 2016

The Glasgow Enlightenment

This text presents the selected proceedings of a conference sponsored by the 18th-century Scottis... more This text presents the selected proceedings of a conference sponsored by the 18th-century Scottish Studies Society. It looks at the achievements of intellectual and academic figures who made Glasgow into a centre of Enlightenment in the 18th century. The book looks at the achievements of Adam Smith and his fellow scholars, including Frances Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, John Millar and John Anderson. At a time when the Glasgow economy was booming on the strength of its trade with America, these and other Glasgow men of science and learning were making major contributions to the European world of philosophy, law, economics, science and knowledge in general.

The History of Scotland

William Robertson and David Hume: Three Letters

Hume Studies, 1985

The relationship between David Hume and his fellow Scottish historian William Robertson has alway... more The relationship between David Hume and his fellow Scottish historian William Robertson has always seemed one-sided. Despite the existence of fifteen letters to Robertson in the standard volumes of correspondence,' Hume scholars have long had reason to regret the lack of a single extant letter from Robertson to Hume. None are to be found, for example,

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JGA Pocock, Virtue, Commerce and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century Reviewed by

Philosophy in Review, 1986

JGA Pocock , Virtue, Commerce and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in th... more

Sociability and society in eighteenth-century Scotland

Drysdale, John (1718–1788), Church of Scotland minister

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004

Oswald, James (1703–1793), Church of Scotland minister and philosophical writer

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004

Hugh Blair (1718–1800): An Annotated Bibliography

by Zubin Meer and Richard Sher

Version 2.0, 4 July 2016