Book Description

Excerpt from The Life and Works of Robert Burns, Vol. 1 of 4 Tm; writings of Burns - his Poems, Songs, and Letters - are most of them so expressly the coinage of his immediate experiences and feelings, that his life might be read in them alone. As hitherto arranged, each series might be likened to a fragmentary view of the Poet's life, supplementary to the meagre memoir usually prefixed. So arranged, the biographic effect of the whole is either imperfectly developed, or lost by dissipation. It occurred to me - and I find that the same idea had latterly occurred to Allan Cunningham - that if the various compositions were strung in strict chronological order upon the memoir, they might be made to render up the whole light which they are qualified to throw upon the history of the life and mental progress of Burns, at the same time that a new significancy was given to them by their being read in connection with the current of events and emotions which led to their production. Such is the plan here adopted, and the menlt is not merely a great amount of new biographical detail, but a new sense, efficacy, and feeling, in the writings of the Poet himself.' This quotation from the preface to the first edition of Dr Robert Chambers's Life and Works of Robert Burns fully explains the spirit in which that work was undertaken, and the plan in accordance with which it was carried out. The forty-five years that have passed since these words were written have signally proved their wisdom. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.