Based on the recent census of the surviving copies of Robert Burns's first book, Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Kilmarnock, 1786) (Young and Scott, 2017), discusses and illustrates the different forms in which it has been preserved, contrasting the original wrappers with later fine bindings, but also illustrating several contemporary bindings with which the original owners replaced the temporary wrappers, suggesting that these give a better indication of the social range of Burns's first readers.