Robert Burns
Date of birth: 1759-01-25 — Date of death: 1796-07-21
Poet. Son of William Burnes (1721-1784), a Scottish gardener and tenant farmer, and Agnes Brown (1732-1820), of Maybole, Ayrshire. Burns married Jean Armour in 1788. Burns' first collection of verse - Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1796) - was well-received, with poems such as To a Mouse reflecting the growing trend for romanticism. Having spent the money gained from his literary success, Burns' took up employment as an Excise Officer in Dumfries in 1789. Burns was buried with full military and civil honours on the day his son, Maxwell, was born.