Robert Burns (Rabbie Burns)

Robert Burns (1759–1796), born to a tenant farmer in an Alloway clay cottage, worked the plow from childhood, absorbing the rich oral balladry and folklore of the Scottish lowlands. In 1786, facing poverty and planning to emigrate to Jamaica, Burns published his Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (the Kilmarnock edition) to pay his passage.

The volume caused an instant sensation across Britain, transforming the 'Ploughman Poet' into a national hero. Burns traveled across Scotland collecting, polishing, and preserving traditional folk songs for musical anthologies. His egalitarian anthem A Man's a Man for A' That championed universal human dignity regardless of birth, while his adaptation of Auld Lang Syne became the global anthem of friendship sung across the planet every New Year's Eve. Burns Night is celebrated worldwide on his birthday, January 25.