He is said to have been the elder brother of the biblical critic Dr Alexander Geddes, who died in 1802 and is buried at St Mary's, Paddington.

[2] Burns first met Geddes during the winter of 1786/87 at the Edinburgh home of Lord Monboddo when the Bishop was living in the city.

[3][4] Geddes was not a formal subscriber to Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Edinburgh Edition), but he was responsible for the subscriptions by five Catholic Seminaries, such as the aforementioned Scots College at Valladolid where he had once been Rector.

[4][9] Burns borrowed Geddes's own copy of his 1787 Edinburgh Edition to accompany him on his Highland Tour (August - September 1787),[5] but failed to return it for almost two years.

[12] The words removed are within the brackets: "I gave up my transient connexion [with the merely Great,] those self-important beings whose intrinsic [worthlessness is con]cealed under the accidental advantages of their [rank, I cannot lose the] patronising notice of the Learned and the [Good without the bittere]st regret.

"[13] The printed section of 'Burns's' poems followed a protocol personal and many place names were given a degree of anonymity by replacing most letters with asterisks,[14] however to assist the bishop, Burns wrote in the missing letters and he also provides extra details such as the real name of 'Doctor Hornbook' being 'John Wilson Schoolmaster, Tarbolton'.

I send a copy of it, with my best prose letter, to the son of the great man, the theme of the piece, by the hand, too, of one of the noblest men in God's world, Alexander Wood, surgeon, when behold, his solicitorship took no more notice of my poem or me than had I been a strolling fiddler, who had made free with his lady's name over the head of a silly new reel!

"[14] Burns added an extra verse to 'Tam Samson's Elegy' on page 152 and indicated the position it should be placed in the reading order: There, low he lies, in lasting rest; Perhaps upon his mould’ring breast Some spitefu’ muirfowl bigs her nest To hatch an’ breed: Alas!

Alexander Geddes died at Finsbury Square in London whilst on a visit to his niece Margaret, who had married John Hyslop, a Scottish surgeon.

These details are recorded in Goadby's own handwriting on a previously blank page at the back of the book: “The late John Hyslop, Esq., late of Finsbury Square, London, Surgeon, married Margaret Geddes, the niece of Bishop John Geddes and his younger brother, Alexander.

Late in life the Bishop visited London and stayed at his niece’s home in Finsbury Square, where he felt sick and died.

Henry Goadby.”[3] James Black from Nairn, then resident in Detroit, had become friendly with Dr Henry Goadby thanks to an introduction by a Dr Cowan and purchased 'The Geddes Burn' in 1863 from the Doctor's widow after a long drawn out period of correspondence and in total twenty years in the family's possession.

[16] John Geddes’ original volume, complete with the letter and the handwritten work of Burns, now resides in San Marino at the Henry E Huntington Library & Art Gallery in California.

Burns then wrote: “The foregoing three poems are the favor of the Nithsdale Muses” In 1908, Bixby had The Geddes Burns photographed and ‘reproduced by the lithographic and gelatine process’[9] in a limited octavo edition of 473 copies bound in full calf leather with gilt ruling and lettering, all enclosed in a double slip case with a label on the exterior spine.

[3] The 473 copies were, as detailed on the facsimile's title page, distributed only to the members of the 'Bibliophile Society of Boston', also known as 'The Club of Odd Volumes.'

This was a Gentlemen's Club in which Members, some well known, such as Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, were referred to as “His Oddship ……….”[3] James Currie had published Burns's letter to Geddes, with some errors, in his biography of the poet.