The Scottish poet Robert Burns has been idolised & eulogised He has been sainted painted tarted-up & toasted He is famous as the author of ' Auld Lang Syne' & he has long been the patron saint of the heartsore & the hungover But what about the poems? Beneath the cult of Burns Nights & patriotic yawps there is the work itself among the purest & most truthful created in any age This is a Burns collection like no other introduced arranged & contextualised by the award-winning novelist & essayist Andrew O' Hagan Above all it is an accessible edition made for the pleasure of reading that brings Burns' timeless work to full riotous colourful life