TALE OF THREE CITIES

'The Life and Times of Lord Daer 1763-1794', the subject of this biography is Basil William Douglas whose political radicalism developed from connections made through his progressive education. Lord Daer became immersed in Scottish Enlightenment ideas at the University of Edinburgh under the tutelage of Dugald Stewart, and his experiences in three great cities - Edinburgh, London and Paris. Lord Daer left a remarkable impression on those who knew him including the poet Robert Burns, the French intellectual and revolutionary the Marquis de Condorcet, Thomas Paine and other leading British radicals and French revolutionaries. This is a true story about the rise of a new kind of British politics in the late 1700s. For Daer, this moment held the tantalising possibility of creating a new union between Scotland and England, a union of people rather than the narrow, unequal union of states created in 1707. But who was the man behind this early unionist radical vision? Daer was the eldest surviving child of the 4th Earl of Selkirk and his wife Helen. Born in 1763, he died at a relatively young age of 31 from pulmonary consumption, but his life was full of incident, interest and especially in its final decade, achievement. Daer was in Paris to witness the opening of the Estate's General, the formation of the National Assembly, and the fall of the Bastille. Whilst in France in 1791, he met and befriended Thomas Paine, who was according to loyalists "a malign inspirer of radicalism". One of the aims of this book is to explain how a man like Daer from a privileged, landed background, became a friend of Paine's and an advocate of advanced, political reform in Britain. Until now this figure has remained largely in the background until this first full-length study. We see Edinburgh, a world of tight-knit clubs and tavern meetings, where intellectuals and booksellers rub shoulders on the capital's high street and a sense of flourishing. 280pp, eight pages of photos.