Welcome to
Burns Country - Home
 
Search This Site
 

Everything you wanted to know about Robert Burns, Scotland's national bard (and lots more besides). Please let us know if anything's missing, wrong, or just plain wonderful

Burns Country Collage

AULD LANG SYNE
Words | Karaoke!

Burns Shop
Poems and Songs
Burns Encyclopaedia
Burns Suppers
Burns Cottage and Park
Burns in English
Burns Chess Set
Burns Links
Scotweb Mall
 
robert burns store
View our exclusive range of distinctive Robert Burns related products.

Register with our Shopping Club for further offers and unique member offers.

Contact us:
info@robertburns.org


Home
Introduction -- Contents -- Extracts -- About the Author

The Best of Robert Burns in English
By William Curran

Book Cover Robert Burns' songs and poems are widely known and loved. Burns' Night is cause for universal celebration. But the most fervent admirer will admit that it is sometimes difficult to fathom exactly what the poet means.
It is easy to forget that he transformed a dialect of Scottish peasantry into high poetry and that he wrote two hundred years ago.
William Curran has done all Burns' admirers a great service by translating the best of his oeuvre into modern English while retaining the sense, rhythms and flavour of the original.

William Curran Curran's anthology makes it magnificently clear that Burns was more than the 'Heaven-taught Ploughman' of popular legend. Whether reworking an ancient story, describing the pleasures and pains of love, the inquities of a local laird or the hypocrisies of kirk and state, he does so with charm always succinct and a compassion never cruel.

My name-sake, Sir Samuel Curran, one time Principal and Vice Chancellor of Strathclyde University, kindly wrote a foreword to the book, stating amongst other things : "He deserves all the esteem that application such as that of the author brings to his cause. I feel a real gap is being filled by publication of this work and I do hope it proves a blessing to a great many new followers of the poet"

This volume makes Burns immediately accessible to the contemporary reader.

The Book Extracts section contains examples of Burns' shorter poems which illustrate the breadth of his perceptions.
A list of all the work covered in the book can be found on the contents page.


Introduction -- Contents -- Extracts -- About the Author

To Purchase...

Please email the author directly, at BestOfBurns@aol.com
Robert Burns Store

NEW!! robert burns store View our exclusive range of distinctive Robert Burns related products. Register with our Shopping Club for further offers and unique member offers.Click here...


Complete Burns Songs

linn recordings of burns Linn Records have completed their landmark recording of all 368 Burns songs, available as individual CDs or a 12 volume presentation box set. We have full details. Click here...


Burns Music & Recordings
Search our huge CD and music store for any Burns-related phrase!
Hint: Type "lang syne" or "peck maut" etc. into the Search box there for all artists, titles, descriptions or track listings with the words entered.
CLAN by Scotweb

ScotwebThe finest Scottish shopping site in the world, with the world's largest choice of kilts and tartans, exclusive jewelry, Highland Dress, Bagpipes and piping supplies, cashmere, and much more. Buying from these sites helps pay for the upkeep of Burns Country! Click here...