Pindar: The Complete works of Peter Leslie

by James Campbell, Peter Leslie

Overview

Pindar: The Complete Works of Peter Leslie is organised in three sections: Autobiography of a Private Soldier (published in 1877 by the Fife News in Cupar, Fife, Scotland), giving an account of his life from birth (1836) until he came back from the army (1877); Random Rhymes (published in 1893 by Fife News), which is an anthology of his poems edited by The Rev. A.M. Houston, B.D., minister of Auchterderran; and, lastly, a collection of Pindar's unpublished poems and songs gathered from The Cowdenbeath & Lochgelly Times & Advertiser (1895 to 1897) by James Campbell. As most of the pieces that appeared in local newspapers have not previously been included in any book, this is the first time that the complete works of Peter Leslie have been published.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781907676833
Publisher:	Grace Note
Publication date:	05/23/2016
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Peter Leslie was born in Auld Launcherhead; an old Raw that was demolished many years ago. They were then the eldest houses in Lochgelly (Fife, Scotland). His mother was a farm servant at Dothan Farm, and she later married David Baxter, one of the oldest families in Lochgelly, who was grandfather of the well-known Lochegelly Baxter family who have been closely identified with instrumental music in the town. The late David Baxter, whom I can recall from boyhood playing his beloved coronet round about Cartmore Braes, was a half-brother. Two other brothers were also soldiers. His real name, or at least the name under which he joined the army was Peter Leslie.

The pen name of Pindar was doubtless suggested by his reading acquaintance with John Walcott, who wrote satires and lampoons round the end of the eighteenth century under the pseudonym of Pindar, or it may have suggested itself from the French poet Pindar. In Lochgelly, he was never known by any other name than Pindar. He never married though he had many a romance. He early showed a taste for rhyme and literature though he had not much of an early education.

In his book The Autobiography of a Private Soldier, he state that he was born in the beautiful village of Glendale, which of course is Lochgelly. He was well known as John Pindar, "The Lochgelly Poet."