Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is the first collection of Robert Burns, published in Kilmarnock in 1786. Written by a young Ayrshire farmer, its poems in Scots on rural life, love, animals and religion made him famous almost overnight. It includes To a Mouse and The Cotter's Saturday Night.
The Kilmarnock edition
The book was printed by John Wilson in Kilmarnock, in an edition of about six hundred copies, which sold out within a month.
Burns had planned to emigrate to Jamaica and hoped the book would pay for his passage. Its success kept him in Scotland.
Poems of the countryside
To a Mouse addresses a field mouse whose nest the poet has destroyed with his plough, and reflects on the fragile plans of all creatures.
The Cotter's Saturday Night describes an evening in a poor but loving farm family, and Halloween records the customs of the Scottish countryside.
Scots and English
Burns wrote in the Scots of his region, with some English, and the book included a glossary for readers who did not know the dialect.
An expanded edition published in Edinburgh in 1787 brought him national fame and new patrons.
Anecdotes
The ploughman poet
Edinburgh society celebrated Burns as a heaven-taught ploughman, an image he partly encouraged, though he was in fact well read.
Of mice and men
John Steinbeck took the title of his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men from a line in To a Mouse about the best-laid plans going wrong.
Frequently asked questions
Where was the collection published?
In Kilmarnock, Scotland, in 1786.
Which poem gave a title to a Steinbeck novel?
To a Mouse.
What language did Burns write in?
Mainly Scots, the language of Lowland Scotland.