'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century: Correspondence & Poetry'

The central focus of this research is producing reliable, accessible and scholarly reading texts of Robert Burns for both the academic and general reader in the 21st Century, specifically Burns's Poetry and Correspondence. The Poetry has not been freshly edited in complete form since the 1960s, and the present edition will take advantage of around 75 new manuscript and 55 new print material discoveries. The two volumes of 'Poetry' will also include a proportion of 'Song' texts, which have been presented and read, historically, as 'Poetry' texts. Much will be made in the descriptive apparatuses and criticism produced by the 'Poetry' part of the project of 'Burns Song as Poetry'. Similarly, the Correspondence will capitalise upon around 100 new manuscript and 60 new print material discoveries. These three volumes of letters will also be the first time ever that there has been an edition of any kind, let alone a scholarly one, that brings together both sides of Burns's correspondence in its fully extant form. Correspondence to Burns has either never been published previously (about 50 per cent of this material), or it has been badly edited and often bowdlerized in print.

As well as attempting to produce as complete and helpful a reading experience as possible through the application of modern textual editing techniques and providing explanatory annotation (of historical matters, the Scots language and other biographical and cultural information), 'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century: Poetry and Correspondence' also allows a 'behind the scenes' or 'hands on' approach for the reader who desires it. This will occur through four substantial online workshops on the editing of Burns, including the large hinterland of forged and facsimile material sometimes mistaken for the real thing. Editorial possibilities and choices are explained for the editing of Burns song, poetry and correspondence (the material for the first among these three drawn from the AHRC-funded 'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century', 2011-16, and the resultant Oxford University Press volumes published, or to be published - 2014, 2016 and 2018). These workshops are intended to be accessible to the generally interested 'layperson' as well as providing insight for other scholars and also archivists, curators, librarians and rare book and manuscript dealers, all of whom make up the substantial Robert Burns area of the Cultural Heritage sector. This online material will also be directly related to the 'Introductions on the Text' sections of each of the new OUP volumes. Similarly, and with additional benefits to the Burns Tourist sector, the interactive map of Burns's correspondents and their locations provides an accessible and path-breaking mapping of Burns's social, cultural and intellectual networks during the late eighteenth century.

The research for 'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century: Correspondence and Poetry' will also be showcased in public-facing workshops at four different geographical locations where there are holdings of Burns manuscripts: Alloway, Dumfries, Edinburgh and Irvine. Likewise three articles in peer-reviewed journals will also be of specialist editing interest to the academic community.

'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century: Correspondence and Poetry' will not only be of benefit to the academic community, but will also be of direct relevance to the Robert Burns Heritage Sector. As mentioned elsewhere in this application, four symposia will be held at venues of partner members of 'Burns Scotland'. Burns Scotland is the nationally recognised ('distributed') Robert Burns collection encompassing national institutions and local authorities. Our events will be open to the public of these different museums and libraries and will be based upon opening up the collections of these partners in tandem with the editing work of the project. Additionally, our online workshops (again detailed elsewhere on this form), will be of relevance to the wider Burns public, as well as to curators, archivists and rare booksellers. The Burns Chronicle (organ of the Worldwide Burns Federation, over 250 Burns Clubs and over 35,000 members worldwide) is keen to report our progress on the editing of Burns's Correspondence and Poetry. Our four substantial online workshops will discuss such issues as paper-types, watermarks, dating and, indeed, forgery. Our list of forgeries and facsimiles will bring together for the first time a database on Burnsian phenomena which have never been comprehensively collated before. Burnsians, Burns 'professionals' and tourists, home and abroad, will be interested in material, manuscripts, objects and virtual exhibitions, generally, within our workshops and in our 'tour' sections (see below) which link to various repositories and museums, operating in partnership with the University of Glasgow editing project. For the years, 2012-15 'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century' has had over 40 stories in the local, national and world press and media. Given the likely interest in Burns's Correspondence and Poetry this is a figure I would predict to be superseded in the new project.

Our activity will be available to enhance the wide swathe of Burns tourist activity (over 47,000 footfall alone in 2014-15 at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum), but will also more specifically, via our interactive map of Burns's Correspondents, allow a resource for people planning bespoke Burns tours. Links via the Burns Scotland partner websites will foreground, indeed, propose the itineraries of these local 'trails'. Initial discussions with 'Visit Scotland' (the national tourism umbrella of Scotland) and the National Trust for Scotland have seen both express interest in having our correspondents and tour material linked from their websites, as being of particular interest to tourists to 'Burns Country'.

Internationally, as well as interest from the Worldwide Burns Federation, the Robert Burns Association of North America is also keenly interested in our editing project and represents a strong sales element for the Oxford University Press edition of the Works of Burns, of which Poetry and Correspondence will form a part. Among regular trips to RBANA partners, the PI will address the Calgary Burns Supper in 2017 (800 attendees) on the edition.

The work and outputs of 'Editing Robert Burns for the 21st Century: Correspondence and Poetry' have a large potential audience in the wider community, including the interest of as many as 35,000 Burnsians and a much larger tourism community. As well as being a scholarly project, it has a natural reach not only to a large public interest group (via our existing social media as well as through our symposia), but to the heritage sector represented by 'Burns Scotland'.