Scotland's national poet
Robert Burns was born on 25 January 1759 in a small thatched cottage in Alloway, Ayrshire, the eldest of seven children of a tenant farmer. His family was poor, and Burns worked the land from childhood. But his father valued education, and Robert read voraciously — Shakespeare, Pope, Locke, and the traditional songs and stories of Ayrshire.
Burns published his first collection, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, in 1786. It was an immediate sensation. The "heaven-taught ploughman" — as Edinburgh's literary establishment patronisingly called him — wrote in both Scots and English with a directness, wit, and humanity that connected with readers across every class. To a Mouse, To a Louse, Holy Willie's Prayer, and Tam o' Shanter are among the finest poems in the English language.
Burns moved to Edinburgh and was lionised by polite society, but he never forgot where he came from. His later years were spent as an excise officer in Dumfries, collecting taxes and writing songs. He contributed over 200 songs to James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, preserving Scottish musical heritage that might otherwise have been lost. Auld Lang Syne, sung around the world every New Year, and A Red, Red Rose are his most famous.
Burns died on 21 July 1796, aged just 37, probably from rheumatic heart disease aggravated by years of hard physical labour. His funeral in Dumfries drew thousands. Today, Burns Night on 25 January is celebrated worldwide with haggis, whisky, poetry, and the Address to a Haggis. No other poet in history has a national celebration in their honour. Burns is Scotland's cultural soul.