Life of Robert Burns

Life of Robert Burns By John Gibson Lockhart This new edition of the life of Burns carries a new introduction by Professor James Kinsley. Although Lockhart's reputation rests 'mainly on his Life of Scott,' says Professor Kinsley, which, for its ordonnance and for its qualities of sympathy, humour, characterization, and judicious criticism, has taken a place not far below the other great Scottish biography, Boswell's Life of Johnson. Lockhart's Life of Burns, his first sustained attempt in biography, was for a century and more the standard account of the poet and his work. If Lockhart is sometimes limited, he is generally sensible he was born just before Burns died, and had access to men who had seen and known the poet his critical approach is often close to that of the literary world to which Burns, for a time, turned a hopeful eye and his succinct sketches of Burns's milieu and of the men in it, are excellent. This life is still a valuable source book for the student, and one of the few judicious and eminently readable biographies of Burns.