Author: Gerard Carruthers The most essential of the immortal poems and songs of Scotland's beloved national bard are collected in this volume. With the publication of his first book of poems in 1786, Robert Burns—the twenty-seven-year-old son of a farmer—became a national celebrity, hailed as the "Ploughman Poet." When he died ten years later, ten thousand people came to pay their respects at his funeral, and in the two centuries since then he has inspired a cultlike following among Scots and poetry lovers around the world. (hb) |