Old Photograph Robert Williams Buchanan Scotland

Old photograph of Robert Williams Buchanan in Glasgow, Scotland. The father of Robert Buchanan, born 1813, died 1866, a native of Ayr, Scotland, lived for some years in Manchester, England, then moved to Glasgow, where Buchanan junior, born 18 August 1841, died 10 June 1901, was educated, at the high school and the university. One of his fellow students was the poet David Gray. His essay on Gray, originally published in the Cornhill Magazine, tells the story of their close friendship, and of their journey to London in 1860 in search of fame. Buchanan's first published works were books of poetry written while he was still living in Glasgow. London Poems published in 1866 established Buchanan as a poet. He followed his first novel, The Shadow of the Sword in 1876, with a continuous stream of poems, novels, and melodramas. In 1896 he became, so far as some of his work was concerned, his own publisher. He was unfortunate in his latter years; a speculation turned out ruinously, and he had to sell his copyrights. In the autumn of 1900 he had a paralytic seizure, from which he never recovered. He died at Streatham.



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