THE POETRY OF ROBERT BURNS CENTENARY EDITION (4 volumes, complete)

The Centenary Burns, four volumes, 8vo, tan cloth decorated in gilt in the MacKintosh/ Art Nouveau style, volumes 1 and 2 published 1896, 3 and 4 in 1897, gte, sides untrimmed, each in near fine condition. Set owned by Victorian author Ella Napier Lefroy (1854-1919) with her bookplate on the front pastedown of each volume. A Glasgow native and eldest daughter of merchant and politician Alexander Hastie of Luscar, in 1873, she married Thomas Charles Perceval Lefroy, an Irish businessman who worked for the brewers Guinness and Bass. The couple lived in London and had four children. In the 1890s, Lefroy wrote two novels - "A Scots Thistle" (2 vols. London: Bentley, 1892) and "Janet Delille" (2 vols. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1894) under the pseudonym "E. N. Leigh Fry." Thereafter, it appears, she gave up literature. Her husband died in 1893 which may have influenced her decision.