This volume offers Burns's work as it was first encountered by contemporary readers, presenting the texts in the contexts in which they were originally published. It includes the whole of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786), a generous selection of songs with full scores, comprehensive notes, some important letters and a glossary.

• Introduction


• Chronology


• Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Kilmarnock 1786)


• from Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Edinburgh 1787)


• Songs from The Scots Musical Museum


• Song from A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, for the Voice (1798-9)


• Other poems and songs published in Burns's lifetime


• Other poems and songs published posthumously


• Maps


• Appendix 1: from the Letters


• Appendix 2: contemporary reviews of the Kilmarnock Poems


• Notes


• Further Reading


• Index of Titles and First Lines

Robert P. Irvine has written on Jane Austen and is the editor of The Edinburgh Anthology of Scottish Literature, 2 vols. (Kennedy and Boyd, 2009), and R. L. Stevenson's Prince Otto for the New Edinburgh Edition of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (forthcoming).