Transcripts of most of the unpublished documents I have used are included in Mr. Robert T. Fitzhugh’s Cornell University dissertation, ‘Robert Burns as Seen by his Contemporaries’ (1935). I am deeply indebted to Mr. Fitzhugh for the use of this material and of other documents he has discovered more recently, chief among them the letter in which Robert Ainslie described to Agnes M’Lehose his visit to Ellisland in October, 1790. In addition to the Train MS., above mentioned, Mr. Fitzhugh’s thesis includes numerous letters by Burns’s contemporaries, of which the most important are the forty-one which passed between John Syme and Alexander Cunningham from 1789 to 1797. On publication in the _Burns Chronicle_ these letters were considerably expurgated, the deletions including details of the Caledonian Hunt’s revelry in Dumfries and the most graphic description which has yet come to light in connection with Burns of a wet evening over the punchbowl. Many other people have helped me in the work. My wife typed most of it in its original form, clarified doubtful points by debating them, and did her best to restrain the wilder excesses of Ph.D. diction. My colleague, Winfield H. Rogers, read the manuscript, and made many useful comments. A famous British firm gave me free permission to use one of Burns’s bawdier letters, but after I published it they were taken to task by one of the literary executors above mentioned. Since they found it easier to repudiate a foreigner than to face the wrath of a compatriot, I shall not embarrass them by repeating my thanks here. I am indebted to Col. Sir John Murray, D.S.O., for use of the original MS. of Burns’s journal of his Border tour. Mr. Davidson Cook, Mr. George W. Shirley, and Mr. John M’Vie have all shared their Burns discoveries with me, and Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach, Mr. Gabriel Wells, and the late Mr. Charles Sessler renewed my obligations to them by allowing me to collate MSS. which came into their hands after my edition of the _Letters_ was published. And finally, I owe a still deeper renewal of gratitude to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, to whose grant-in-aid this present volume owes its appearance. DE L. F. _Western Reserve University 20 August 1938_ CHRONOLOGY OF BURNS’S LIFE I. AYRSHIRE 1759. _Jan. 25._ Robert Burns born at Alloway; eldest son of William Burnes (1721-1784) and his wife Agnes Broun (1732-1820). The other children were Gilbert (1760-1827), Agnes (1762-1834), Anabella (1764-1832), William (1767-1790), John (1769-1785), and Isabella (1771-1858). 1765. Robert and Gilbert sent to school to John Murdoch. 1766. William Burnes rents Mt. Oliphant farm. 1768. Murdoch gives up Alloway school. The _Titus Andronicus_ incident. 1772. Robert and Gilbert attend Dalrymple parish school, week about, during summer quarter.