|
Edited
by Frank R. Shaw, FSA Scot, Dawsonville, GA, USA
Email:
jurascot@earthlink.net
Book Review of
The Best Laid Schemes:
Selected Poetry & Prose of Robert Burns
Edited by
Robert Crawford & Christopher MacLachlan
Is this a good book? Yes, but
it is even more…it’s a great book! It is also an interesting book,
well-written, refreshing, and a first-class gathering of the works of Robert
Burns most appreciated by authors Robert Crawford and Christopher MacLachlan.
Crawford has become one of the world’s most acclaimed Burns scholars and
MacLachlan is one of the best textual experts on Scotland’s Bard! The two
men have combined their scholarship to produce, according to Princeton
Press, a “definitive, wide-ranging collection” of the poems and prose of
Burns. It is a book you and I will return to time after time as we continue
to study, write or speak about him. As a teaser, the editors mention that
“there are more statues of Robert Burns in the United States than there are
of any American Poet.” What wonderful sound bite!
Many books have come on the
market this year in celebration of the 250th anniversary of
Burns’ birth, and I highly recommend this one be placed in the top tier of
the lot. It’s easy to project that it will be welcomed by scholar and layman
alike. Let’s look briefly now at the various sections in the volume.
The section on POEMS is rare
since line-by-line marginal glossing is used to enhance the meaning of the
poetry and make for easier reading. Crawford’s selection of poetry typifies
his genius, and I am unaware of a better selection other than the whole of
Burns’s poems. If you need a guide to the best of Burns’s verse, this is it.
As Graham Greene was wont to say, “This is the heart of the matter”.
Robert Crawford & Christopher
MacLachlan
The REDISCOVERED POEMS were
tracked down by Crawford “through extensive digital searching of the
National Burns Collection” (along with a few cups of coffee) which other
researchers either overlooked or chose to dismiss or ignore. As the editors
say, “all (of these) manuscripts are in Burns’s hand”. What a discovery!
The PROSE of Burns, always a
favorite of mine, covers important sections of Burns’s First Commonplace
Book during the years 1783-1785. Predictably, the autobiographical letter
from Burns to Dr. John Moore is among the prose chosen. Other selections are
from his literary lover and maybe paramour Agnes McLehose, dear friend
Robert Ainslie, his often neglected pen pal Frances Dunlop, and his touching
and sad letter to father-in-law James Armour, whom he at one time despised,
written from his death bed and describing himself as “Your most affectionate
son – RBurns.”
Crawford and MacLachlan share
their indebtedness to James Kinsley’s three-volume masterpiece as most of us
should but do not always do! Who contributed what to the book? It is my
understanding that the textual notes were by MacLachlan and his “Notes” on
pages 225-264 are worth the price of the book. The introduction by Crawford
on pages xiii – xxxv (13 – 35) are the best 22 pages you will find anywhere
to sum up the life of Burns. Crawford, in a recent email writes, “We each
kept an eye on what the other was doing and made some adjustments.”
MacLachlan declares that “…we hope this edition provides texts that are
clear, well glossed, reliable, and allow readers to get a good sense of the
vivacity of Burns’s works”. All I can add is “GOAL ACHIEVED!” These two
editors do “give us a Burns to believe in”, a phrase I will borrow for the
Scotsman.com. As William Faulkner taught us, the past is never dead and
neither is Robert Burns.
You may purchase The
Best Laid Schemes: Selected Poetry & Prose of Robert Burns from
Princeton University Press, ISBN13: 978 0 691 14295 1 (Paper) or ISBN13: 978
0 691 14294 4 (Cloth). You can also find it online at Barnes & Noble,
Amazon.com, and you may order it from your local book seller. (FRS:
9.23.09) |
