Ae Fond Kiss: a private matter?

Wed 14 February 2018

11:00 – 12:00

HM General Register House

2 Princes Street

Edinburgh

EH1 3YY

Professor Hector MacQueen considers the affair between Robert Burns (Sylvander) and Agnes McLehose (Clarinda) in 1787-88 through the lens of a legal action in 1804 aimed at preventing publication of their private correspondence written while their mutual passion was at its height.

Burns was long dead at the time of the case and, although Clarinda was still alive, she was not a party to the litigation.

But her uncle was one of the judges in the court deciding the matter. This talk investigates what the legal records tell us, not only about the outcome of the case, but also about the Burns-Clarinda affair itself.