I know the bits of Burns most people do - Auld Lang Syne, A Red Red Rose, To a Mouse and so on, but there was much here that was new to me. Maybe because I 'did' Tam for 'O' level English Lit, maybe because I'm from Northern Ireland where some dialect words are the same, or maybe because I read for rhythm and sense rather than worrying about every word, I found the glossary at the back useful, but not something I needed to refer to frequently. I therefore enjoyed this selection immensely - enough poems to get the measure of the poet, not so many as to leave one feeling overstuffed, and with thoughtful attachments from Mr O'Hagan.

One thing pulled me up short - four lines in Tam O'Shanter:
Three Lawyer's tongues, turn'd inside out,
Wi' lies seam'd like a beggar's clout;
Three Priest's hearts rotten, black as muck
Lay stinking, vile, in every neuk.-
were, in the version I learnt:
And mair o' horrible an' awfu'
That e'en to name wud be unlawfu'.
Was that a Burns substitution in some edition or other, or a bowlderisation in the anthology (whose name I do not recall) we used?

Anyway new favourites from this collection: Love & Liberty - A Cantata; Willie Brew'd a Peck o' Maut; Address to the Unco Guid, or the Rigidly Righteous; Death & Doctor Hornbook - A True Story; Holy Willie's Prayer; and being able to read all of A Man's a Man for A' That.