The Life of Robert Burns

This classic and controversial biography of Scotland’s National Bard offers an unvarnished chronicle of the 18th century poet’s life. First published in 1930 to an unprecedented storm of protest, Catherine Carswell’s The Life of Robert Burns remains the standard work on its subject. Widely revered as Scotland’s greatest poet, Burns’s devotees were so upset by its contents that Carswell famously received a bullet in the mail, with instructions for its use. Carswell deliberately shakes the image o