# Is "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (the Kilmarnock Burns)" by Robert Burns a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (the Kilmarnock Burns) by Robert Burns (John Wilson, Kilmarnock, 1786) is identified by: True first: the Kilmarnock edition, imprint transcribing as "KILMARNOCK: PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON, M,DCC,LXXXVI.", published 31 July 1786; octavo, 240 pp., with the Preface, contents, and the glossary of Scots terms, and carrying the "Entered in Stationers-hall" notice. Kilmarnock 1786 is the true first and there is no rival — English/Scots is the original language and no earlier edition exists.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- True first: the Kilmarnock edition, imprint transcribing as "KILMARNOCK: PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON, M,DCC,LXXXVI.", published 31 July 1786; octavo, 240 pp., with the Preface, contents, and the glossary of Scots terms, and carrying the "Entered in Stationers-hall" notice
- ESTC T91548
- 612 copies were printed and roughly 84 are recorded as surviving, more than half of them in North America — this is one of the great rarities of English-language literature and copies are census-tracked rather than casually traded
- The single fastest disqualifier is a portrait frontispiece: the Kilmarnock has none, whereas the 1787 Edinburgh and later editions carry the John Beugo engraving after Alexander Nasmyth
- Content confirms the same: "Tam o' Shanter" (written 1790) and "Holy Willie's Prayer" are absent, and made-up copies supplying leaves in facsimile are recorded, so leaf-by-leaf collation against Egerer 1 is essential
- Publisher imprint reads John Wilson, Kilmarnock
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Robert Burns |
| Publisher | John Wilson, Kilmarnock |
| Year | 1786 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | True first: the Kilmarnock edition, imprint transcribing as "KILMARNOCK: PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON, M,DCC,LXXXVI.", published 31 July 1786… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
True first: the Kilmarnock edition, imprint transcribing as "KILMARNOCK: PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON, M,DCC,LXXXVI.", published 31 July 1786; octavo, 240 pp., with the Preface, contents, and the glossary of Scots terms, and carrying the "Entered in Stationers-hall" notice. Egerer 1; ESTC T91548. 612 copies were printed and roughly 84 are recorded as surviving, more than half of them in North America — this is one of the great rarities of English-language literature and copies are census-tracked rather than casually traded. The single fastest disqualifier is a portrait frontispiece: the Kilmarnock has none, whereas the 1787 Edinburgh and later editions carry the John Beugo engraving after Alexander Nasmyth. Content confirms the same: "Tam o' Shanter" (written 1790) and "Holy Willie's Prayer" are absent, and made-up copies supplying leaves in facsimile are recorded, so leaf-by-leaf collation against Egerer 1 is essential.

## Is this the true first?
Kilmarnock 1786 is the true first and there is no rival — English/Scots is the original language and no earlier edition exists. The realistic collectible is the first Edinburgh edition (Edinburgh: printed for the Author, and sold by William Creech, 17 April 1787; Egerer 2; ESTC T125274; c. 3,000 copies; Beugo portrait frontispiece; subscribers' list; 22 poems new to the book), and it is genuinely collected in its own right as the first appearance of those poems. The census note's implication about the famous haggis variant is CORRECTED here: the first state is "skinking" (correctly set) at p. 263, and "stinking" is the LATER reading, introduced when William Smellie, short of type, reset and reprinted a large part of the sheets in a partial second impression. Two independent trade sources state the skinking setting precedes the stinking one, and Egerer himself was "inclined to believe" the skinking edition was printed first on comparison with the Kilmarnock text — Egerer's own hedge should be respected rather than overstated. A second corroborating first-state point in the Edinburgh edition is the misprint "Duke of Boxburgh" (for Roxburgh) in the subscribers' list. About 1,000 of the roughly 3,000 copies carry the stinking reading, and roughly 10% of copies mix sheets from both settings, so a copy can legitimately be part-first-state.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club editions exist for an 18th-century work. The documented reprint and later-issue tells are the unauthorised Belfast, Dublin and London editions that followed the 1787 Edinburgh printing, and the second Edinburgh edition of 1793. Made-up Kilmarnock copies with facsimile leaves are a recorded hazard — one described copy contained 84 original leaves and 36 supplied in facsimile — so any Kilmarnock must be leaf-collated. For the Edinburgh edition, presence of the Beugo portrait alone proves nothing about state; only the p. 263 skinking/stinking reading and the subscribers'-list misprint do.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (the Kilmarnock Burns)* by Robert Burns a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/poems-chiefly-in-the-scottish-dialect-the-kilmarnock-burns
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.