Robert Burns was born in a small cottage in Alloway on 25 January 1759. By the time of his death, aged 37, on 21 July 1796, he had become Scotland's best-loved poet and, perhaps more importantly, the symbol of the regeneration of a nation.

Burns belongs to a very small number of poets whose work transcends national, cultural and language barriers. His work is translated into hundreds of languages and genuinely enjoyed by countless people across the world. Perhaps only Shakespeare and Homer have achieved a similar universal appeal. Yet Robert Burns had humble origins. His father, William Burnes (Robert later dropped the "e" to adopt the more common Ayrshire spelling of "Burns"), a gardener from Kincardineshire, in the North East, built by hand the "but and ben" or two room clay cottage on a modest plot that he leased from a local landowner. There he brought his wife, Agnes Broun, who gave birth to Robert in January 1759. A serious and god-fearing man, William worked hard to ensure that Robert and his younger brother, Gilbert, received as good an education as possible. He produced a "Manual of Religious Belief" (now in Burns Cottage Museum) for their improvement and persuaded other local people to raise a subscription to pay for a schoolteacher, John Murdoch, to stay in Alloway and teach the local children. Murdoch was later to recount how well young Robert took to his books and how quickly he could memorise whole passages of text.

In Alloway, as well as receiving the beginnings of his education, young Robert Burns' creative imagination too began to form. His mother, Agnes, would delight him by singing traditional Scots songs and a distant cousin, auld Betty Davidson, would hold him spellbound with tales of ghosts and witches. Roaming the countryside around his home, young Robert encountered the many beasts, birds and plants that were to feature in much of his poetry. In 1766, when Robert was 7, the ever-growing Burnes family moved to nearby Mount Oliphant farm. Times were hard for the family, and Robert had to work hard in the fields from an early age. Many believe that this work contributed to the illness that was eventually to cause his death. At Mount Oliphant, and later at Lochlea, Robert saw his father struggling to make the farm pay and firsthand witnessed the callous treatment of a tenant by a landowner, David McLure, landlord of Lochlea, who twice petitioned against William Burnes in the courts. At Mount Oliphant, when he was 15, Robert wrote his first song, Handsome Nell, for his partner in the fields at harvest time, Nellie Kirkpatrick. Nellie was the first of a number of women who inspired Robert's poetry.