Life of Burns

by John Stuart Blackie

Extensive quotations from Burn's work help place it in the context of his life. THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature.

183 pages, Library Binding

First published June 1, 1975

About the author

John Stuart Blackie was one of the most influential figures of nineteenth-century Scotland. He translated Goethe's Faust and brought first-hand knowledge of German philosophy to Scotland as a means of keeping the Enlightenment tradition alive. As first Professor of Humanity at Aberdeen from 1839 to 1852 and then Professor of Greek at Edinburgh until 1882, he played a central role in modernising the Scottish university curriculum, removing the dead hand of theological orthodoxy, raising standards, introducing tutorial teaching and establishing new chairs, including the Edinburgh chair of Celtic.

Blackie was also a great public man, corresponding with great and famous throughout Great Britain and Europe, from Goethe and Carlyle to Ruskin and Gladstone, and filling the pages of newspapers and journals with writings on the major issues of the day. For the last thirty years of his life he became closely involved in issues of Scottish nationalism and home rule, and as champion of the crofters is largely responsible for their contemporary survival and unique status.