Robert Burns facts for kids

Robert Burns
The best-known portrait of Burns, by Alexander Nasmyth, 1787 (detail)
Born	(1759-01-25)25 January 1759 Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland
Died	21 July 1796(1796-07-21) (aged 37) Dumfries, Scotland
Occupation	Poet lyricist farmer exciseman
Nationality	Scottish
Citizenship	British
Literary movement	Romanticism
Notable works	"Auld Lang Syne" "To a Mouse" "A Man's a Man for A' That" "Ae Fond Kiss" "Scots Wha Hae" "Tam O'Shanter" "Halloween" "The Battle of Sherramuir"
Signature

Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 1796) was a famous poet born in Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland. Some of his most famous poems include To A Mouse, Auld Lang Syne, and Tam o Shanter. Burns is seen as the national poet of Scotland. Much of his work is written in broad Scots, a version of English. His poem and song A Man's A Man For A' That was sung at the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. "To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church" is a 1786 Scots poem by Robert Burns.

Burns died at 37, and is buried in the graveyard of St Michael's Church, Dumfries, Scotland.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource
• Dietrich Hohmann: Ich, Robert Burns, Biographical Novel, Neues Leben, Berlin 1990 (in German)

• Archival material relating to Robert Burns listed at the UK National Archives
• Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, p. 57

Images for kids

• 

  The Burns Cottage in Alloway, Ayrshire

• 

  Full view of the Nasmyth portrait of 1787, Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

• 

  Title page of the Kilmarnock Edition

• 

  Alexander Nasmyth, Robert Burns (1828)

• 

  Burns statue by David Watson Stevenson (1898) in Bernard Street, Leith

• 

  The River Nith at Ellisland Farm.

• 

  Burns House in Dumfries, Scotland

• 

  Tam O’Shanter's Ride, Victoria Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia

• 

  Statue of Burns in Dumfries town centre, unveiled in 1882

• 

  Burns Monument in Dorchester Square, Montréal, Québec

• 

  Burns Commons in Milwaukee, USA

• 

  Ellisland Farm c. 1900

• 

  Burns statue in Treasury Gardens, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

• 

  Burns stamp, USSR 1956

• 

  Engraved version of the Alexander Nasmyth 1787 portrait

• 

  "Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!" – cutting the haggis at a Burns supper