A recently-discovered letter written by Robert Burns to an actress has been published to celebrate his birthday.
Traditional Burns Suppers, poetry recitals and performances have also taken place 254 years on from the birth of the Scottish poet.
The letter, written by Burns to actress Elizabeth Kemble in 1794, was found by researchers working on a Heritage Lottery project to introduce his work to schoolchildren. It has been authenticated forensically and approved by an international expert.
Kemble was from an acting family and shared Burns's support of the abolition of slavery.
The letter asks Ms Kemble to protect a Burns manuscript, which researchers said was a further collection of his letters to his friend Robert Riddell on the anti-slavery topic.
It reads: "All I have to ask of you is, lay the book under lock & key, when you go out, as you will easily believe that I do not wish to expose such a thing to the random perusal of Chance."
The letter will be published in a new book, Enlightened Burns.
Project director Helena Anderson Wright said: "It is quite remarkable that over 200 years after Burns's death, a find like this is still possible.
"Now that we have had it authenticated, we are delighted to share this letter with the world. There is still a mystery surrounding its complete interpretation which will no doubt be hotly debated by academics for years to come."
The original parish register recording the birth of the poet has also been put on display as part of the celebrations. The rarely-seen record documents Burns as the eldest child of William Burnes, a gardener and tenant farmer from Kincardineshire, and his wife, Agnes Brown, of Maybole, Ayrshire, and will be displayed in General Register House in Edinburgh until February 14.
