Kilmarnock volume

Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, first edition.

Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect commonly known as the Kilmarnock volume or Kilmarnock edition, is a collection of poetry by Robert Burns, first printed and issued by John Wilson of Kilmarnock on 31 July 1786.^[1] It was the first published edition of Burns' work. It cost 3 shillings and 612 copies were printed. The volume was dedicated to Gavin Hamilton. The Kilmarnock volume contained, besides satire, a number of poems like "Halloween" (written in 1785), "The Twa Dogs" and "The Cotter's Saturday Night," which are vividly descriptive of the Scots peasant life with which he was most familiar; and a group like "Puir Mailie" and "To a Mouse", which, in the tenderness of their treatment of animals, revealed one of the most attractive sides of Burns' personality.

Six of the original manuscript versions of the poems from the book are in the possession of the Irvine Burns Club.

A miniature facsimile issued in a protective case with a magnifying glass was produced for the benefit of troops in WWI.

The miniature facsimile edition of Robert Burns 1786 volume of poems.

References

1. Burns, Robert (1786). Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (First ed.). Kilmarnock: Printed for John Wilson. Retrieved 26 January 2016. via Internet Archive

See also

• Address to the Deil
• To a Mountain Daisy
• Epitaph for James Smith
• Robert Burns World Federation
• Burns Clubs

External links

• Digitised copy of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect from the Kilmarnock edition printed by John Wilson (1786) from National Library of Scotland. JPEG, PDF, XML versions.
• Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing digital versions of the Kilmarnock edition