Robert Burns: How To Know Him

Harvard Professor of English William Allan Neilson is the author of the biographical novel "Robert Burns: How To Know Him". Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide as the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is in a "light Scots dialect" of English, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. The novel gives his background and the various events of his life that inspired and shaped his poetry such as the books he read early on in life, freemasonry and politics. In particular, it gives a record of his famous love affairs with various women that inspired him to compose some of his well-known love poems.