Burns, Robert.

here with the title "To an old Mistress, then married, with a Copy of Poems, when the author was on the wing for the West Indies", 1 page, 4to, [1786], endorsed on verso, tipped into a blank album, in red morocco by Sangorski and Sutcliffe, light soiling and smudging, 3 small internal tears not affecting text, marginal tears professionally restored

Index of Literary Manuscripts, BuR 1261; The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, ed. James Kinsley, 3 vols (Oxford, 1968)

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, when appropriate.
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an early manuscript. This copy of the poem (one of five surviving autograph copies) is textually very close to the earliest known autograph manuscript, which was once in the collection of R.B. Adam (now in the Rosenbach). The poem was first printed in The Belfast News Letter, 7 August 1797, and first appeared in book form in The Works of Robert Burns, ed. Currie (Liverpool, 1800).

According to an autograph note in another manuscript copy of the poem (the Glenriddell MS, now in the National Library of Scotland), the poem was first written "on the blank leaf of a Copy of the first edition of my Poems". This copy of the Kilmarnock edition is not known to survive. The former mistress to whom the poem is addressed is incorrectly identified in the typed notes accompanying this manuscript as Jean Armour: she was in fact another "early Object of my youthful vows", Peggy Thomson, who had married in 1784. The poem was written in 1786 when Burns resolved to emigrate to Jamaica following Jean Armour's pregnancy. The birth of twins and success of his Poems (Kilmarnock, 1786) led Burns to abandon this plan.