In the following pages there are some summaries.  These are BELIEVED to be near complete but THIS IS NOT GUARANTEED.  These summaries are restricted to Burns correspondence between 1786 and 1796.  However, the gaps in the correspondence demonstrates that not all letters have survived and the reader should always beware that this site only deals with extant letters or surviving lists.  It is not the whole story.

There are many sources for this topic.

        1.Specialist books on Burns Correspondence 'The Letters of Robert Burns', Clarendon Press 1931, Editor Professor J De Lancey Ferguson

                                                                           ' The Letters of Robert Burns', Clarendon Press 1985, Editor Professor G Ross Roy

                                                                            'The Complete Letters of Robert Burns',  Alloway Publishing 1987, Editor J. A. MacKay

        2. General books on Burns Correspondence - there are literally dozens of volumes on selected letters e.g. Clarinda/Sylvander;  Mrs. Dunlop

        3. As part of biographies - could be just as easily measured by weight rather than numbers of pages.

        4. Restricted articles such as in the dozens of Burns Chronicle or the Scots Magazine.

This is not an attempt to place ALL of Burns' correspondence on file.  For example only one letter to Agnes McLehose is incorporated.   Similarly the exchanges with George Thomson have been purposely excluded. This is basically numbers orientated approach that may enhance any other approach by it cannot suffice by itself.

There are basically two ways of looking this broad topic.   Firstly, in chronological order.  Secondly by correspondent.   However (when taken in isolation) a further potentially confused  way to view this topic is to do so graphically AND IT IS GUARANTEED THAT BY USING THIS AS AN EXCLUSIVE MEANS WILL DEFINITELY MISINFORM.

The Chronological Listing of letters - this is not yet complete on the site and this has a bearing on the reliability of the correspondents' listing

The Alphabetical Listing of Correspondents.  This is only shown for illustrative purposes to give an idea of what the pages will look like once the years 1786 to 1789 has been processed in the chronological listing.  However, these are useful in relation to any study confined to the period from January 1790 till the death.

Graphs & Diagrams  These are very basic number crunching diagrams and have no real value beyond entertainment.