Manuscripts in the National Library of Scotland

Individually acquired items
The National Library of Scotland continues to buy poems and letters of Burns from dealers, personal contacts and other standard methods of acquisition. This - highly selective - list provides a 'taster' of the kind of material which we acquire, but is restricted to poems and letters written by the poet.

Letter, 6 December 1787, of Burns to Mrs Nancy McLehose. This is Burns's first letter in this exchange of correspondence in which the poet later addressed this recipient as 'Clarinda'. (MS 3219, folio 3)

Letter, 25 March 1788, of Burns to Robert Graham of Fintry (Acc 8367).

Letter, 10 April 1790, of Burns to Mrs Dunlop of Dunlop, Stewarton (Acc 8810).

Letter, 11 May 1791, of Burns to John Somerville, writer, Edinburgh (Acc 7974).

Letter, mid-March 1793, of Burns to Patrick Miller of Dalswinton (Acc 11475).

Letter, July 1794, of Burns to Captain John Hamilton, Dumfries (MS 3813, f.22).

Poem entitled Song, altered from an old English one - which begins: 'It was the charming month of May', 1794 (Acc 9649.)

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