The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing His Poems, Songs, and Correspondence.: With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham

Scotland's national poet wrote with the raw voice of a farmer and the soul of a revolutionary. Robert Burns transformed the Scottish dialect into literature that pulses with humor, desire, anger, and tenderness. This comprehensive collection gathers his poems, songs, and letters: the complete arc of a genius who died at 37 yet shaped a nation's identity forever. From "To a Mouse" (the fieldmouse whose nest he plowed) to "Tam o' Shanter" (a drunken farmer's midnight ride through hell), from the tender "My Love is like a Red Red Rose" to the defiant "Scots Wha Hae" (which became an anthem of resistance), Burns inhabited every register of human feeling. His love songs ache. His satires bite. His political verses still spark. Allan Cunningham's critical apparatus illuminates the cultural landscape that produced this bard: a man born into miserable rustic poverty who dazzled Edinburgh's literati and became the darling of every class. For anyone who wants to understand what Scotland believes about itself, or who simply wants to hear language burn with life, this is the book.