• The photo shows a large crowd of standing women stretching far back. They are all facing in the same direction and some hold plackards. Many of the women are smiling and chatting to each other. The scene looks convivial.

Why You Should Read Allan Ramsay’s ‘The Gentle Shepherd’

What Scottish play, published in 1725, reached over 100 printings by 1800, was called ‘the noblest pastoral’ by Robert Burns, inspired more than forty paintings, more than ‘from the entire works of Chaucer, Defoe, Swift, Richardson, or Fielding’ (R. Altick, Paintings from Books), and was performed by amateur companies throughout Scotland as late as the end of the 19th century?