Robert Burns the Book Lover: From Reader to Writer

What made Burns read, and what impact did his reading choices have on him as a man and a writer? This meticulous and detailed study presents a Burns 'open to different ideas', and 'making use of them in his life and work'. The poet's extensive reading is traced through his family and early education experience, French studies (particularly of Fénelon), and exposure to novels (notably the works of Smollett, Sterne and Mackenzie) and periodicals. A key theme explores Robert Burns in relation to Romanticism. Appendices include a piece on parallels in the work of Diderot and Burns, and a list of the authors and books read by the poet. As Professor Kenneth Simpson says in his Foreword, this is '..original research made readily accessible'.