both cases, the offer was withdrawn owing to Carmichael's unhappiness with the publisher's plans, and his determination to see the collection through the press on his own terms and according to his own design. Much of the final editing was carried out after Carmichael's retirement from the Inland Revenue in December 1897, with the help of a team of assistants including his daughter Ella Carmichael and his protégés George Henderson (1866–1912), who gave the work its title, and Kenneth MacLeod (1871–1955). The initial letters, adapted from early medieval insular manuscripts and engraved stones, were illustrated by Carmichael's wife Mary Frances Macbean (1838–1928). The book itself, dedicated to Mary Frances, was published in two volumes in October 1900, under the auspices of Walter Biggar Blaikie (1847–1928) in a limited edition of 300 copies, costing 3 guineas a copy. Carmina Gadelica was a landmark in Scottish art publishing, intended not just as a treasury of lore, but as an object of beauty in itself. Reviews The first two volumes of Carmina Gadelica were initially welcomed by reviewers as a monumental achievement in folklore, as well as a lasting testament to their creator: the ‘splendid consummation of the love-labour of a whole diligent life-time’. Although little public criticism was voiced during Carmichael's lifetime, it is clear that other Gaelic folklore collectors and scholars such as Father Allan McDonald, the Rev. John Gregorson Campbell, and Alexander Macbain were uneasy with his earlier treatment of material he had collected. Eventually, Carmichael's editing methods were roundly challenged in 1976 with the publication of Hamish Robertson's article in Scottish Gaelic Studies, "Studies in Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica". Having searched for manuscript copies of charms appearing in the third and fourth volumes, Robertson accused Carmichael of meddling with, altering, and polishing original texts: 'hardly one had not been touched up in some way, sometimes quite drastically'. Robertson's article drew a vigorous rebuff from the Gaelic scholar John Lorne Campbell in the following issue of the journal, although Campbell conceded that '[m]uch of the first three volumes of the Carmina must be taken as a literary and not as a literal presentation of Gaelic folklore'. Now that Alexander Carmichael's original field notebooks, accompanied by full transcriptions, have been published online under the auspices of the Carmichael Watson Project at the Centre for Research Collections, University of Edinburgh, for the first time the editing processes involved in the creation of Carmina