|
|
|
Newsletter March 2000The World Burns Club Exclusively Presents:- Original Manuscripts of Robert Burns The World Burns Club are extremely proud to announce, that for the first time ever, the original manuscripts of the first six poems in the famous "Kilmarnock Edition", will be displayed on the World Wide Web.
These priceless documents are the only surviving original manuscripts from the Kilmarnock Edition and written in Robert Burns's own fair hand. These were the originals given by him to his friend John Wilson, the Kilmarnock printer who published the book. These astonishing documents are in the ownership and safekeeping of The Irvine Burns Club and are retained in high security vaults, carefully controlled for temperature and humidity. As such, they are very rarely put on public display.....for obvious reasons. Thoughtful planning was given and great care taken in carrying out this important task. It took two days to carefully picture the manuscripts alone, and a particular thanks go to John Inglis of Irvine Burns Club for his patience and help. The manuscripts are in excellent condition, and although a little faded, they can be easily read at close range. Given the delicacy of these documents and their importance in history, it proved very difficult to obtain quality images of the manuscripts. Copying each piece, section by section, in close up detail, presented us with a challenge when it came to final presentation on the site. We endeavoured to make each page fit within the constraints of a web page and to recreate the size, colour and texture as they appear in real life. As a result, The
World Burns Club are now pleased to be accredited with being responsible
for displaying these historically important documents to the entire world...which
up until now, has been impossible to do. At last, people from every corner
of the globe, can now readily share in the enjoyment of reading these
original, handwritten masterpieces, in their full glory.
Back |
The 6 Manuscripts are :-
"The Twa Dogs"
"Scotch Drink"
"The Author's Earnest Cry And Prayer"
"The Holy Fair"
"Address To The Deil"
"The Cotter's Saturday Night"
* Copyright 2000 - The World Burns Club
NOTE :- The manuscripts will each be presented month by month, in the coming issues of "Auld Lang Syne" - the Newsletter of The World Burns Club, and thereafter will be available within the Archive
© 2008 The Robert Burns World Federation
