A MAP detailing tours taken by Robert Burns when the poet was at the height of his fame has been created by researchers compiling a major new edition of his prose work.
Experts from the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow and National Library of Scotland traced Burns's tour itineraries on early 19th century roadmaps of Scotland and northern England to enable enthusiasts to follow the Bard through the places and landscapes that inspired him.
Working directly from the handwritten journal and letters that Burns wrote whilst journeying around Scotland and the north of England in 1787, as well as other related documents, literature experts from the University of Glasgow have retraced details of the routes which became hugely influential to his later work.
Burns' tour journal, which includes letters and other related documents. details the places he stayed and the people he met, along with wide ranging reflections on Scottish society, history and culture.
It has been published along with its accompanying maps in the new 'Oxford Edition of the Works of Robert Burns: Commonplace Books, Tour Journals and Miscellaneous Prose', edited by Professor Nigel Leask, Regius Chair of English Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow.
Professor Leask said: "The tour journals are fascinating because they offer us an insight into the life of a poet who was operating at the peak of his powers and reaping the benefits of his new-found fame.
"These texts also show Burns ruminating on some of the pressing social and political issues of the day; far from the figure of the 'heaven taught ploughman', at this point he was keeping company with some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the land.
"I hope that this research will inspire people to engage with the work of Burns and consider him as a man who reacted to his surroundings, not only spaces that he passed through, but the social, political and physical environments that he found himself in."
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