New Collected Rhymes

Andrew Lang (1844 – 1912) was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him. Lang was also a prolific author of works both fiction and non-; he wrote his own fairy tales such as Prince Prigio (1889) and Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia (1893), and wrote numerous historical texts. Andrew Lang was great friends with Robert Louis Stevenson and H. Rider Haggard, with whom he wrote The World's Desire (1890). Preferring romance over realism, he admired their works as well as those of Alexandre Dumas Père, Henry Fielding, William Makepeace Thackeray, fellow Scot Robert Burns and many others.

This book is a collection of rhymes and verses by Andrew Lang. The Queen of Spain is the story of the Florencia, a ship of the Spanish Armada, wrecked in Tobermory Bay, as it was told to me by a mariner in the Sound of Mull. In Keith of Craigentolly the family and territorial names of the hero or villain are purposely altered, so as to avoid injuring susceptibilities and arousing unavailing regrets.