ROBERT

See also:

• WILLIAMS
• WILLIAMS, JOHN (1582-1650)
• WILLIAMS, JOHN (1796-1839)
• WILLIAMS, ROGER (c. 1604–1684)
• WILLIAMS, ROWLAND (1817-1870)
• WILLIAMS, SIR WILLIAM FENWICK

WILLIAMS

See also:

• BUCHANAN
• BUCHANAN, CLAUDIUS
• BUCHANAN, GEORGE (1506–1582)
• BUCHANAN, JAMES (1791-1868)
• ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841-1901)

BUCHANAN (1841-1901)  , British poet, novelist and dramatist, son of Robert Buchanan (1813-1866), Owenite lecturer and journalist, was born at Caverswall, Stafford-shire, on the 18th of August 1841 . His father, a native of Ayr, after living for some years in Manchester, removed to Glasgow, where Buchanan was educated, at the high school and the university, one of his fellow-students being the poet David Gray . His essay on Gray, originally contributed to the Cornhill Magazine, tells the story of their close friendship, and of their journey to London in 186o in search of fame . After a period of struggle and disappointment Buchanan published Undertones in 1863 . This " tentative " volume was followed by Idyls and Legends of Inverburn (1865), London Poems (1866), and North Coast and other Poems (1868), wherein he displayed a faculty for poetic narrative, and a sympathetic insight into the humbler conditions of life . On the whole, Buchanan is at his best in these narrative poems, though he essayed a more ambitious flight in The Book of Orm: A Prelude to the Epic, a study in mysticism, which appeared in 1870 . He was a frequent contributor to periodical literature, and obtained notoriety by an article which, under the nom de plume of Thomas Maitland, he contributed to the Contemporary Review for October 1871, entitled " The Fleshly School of Poetry." This article was expanded into a pamphlet (1872), but he subsequently withdrew from the criticisms it contained, and it is chiefly remembered by the replies it evoked from D . G . Rossetti in a letter to the Athenaeum (16th December 1871), entitled " The Stealthy School of Criticism," and from Mr Swinburne in Under the Microscope (1872) . Buchanan himself afterwards regretted the violence of his attack, and the " old enemy " to whom God and the Man is dedicated was Rossetti . In 1876 appeared The Shadow of the Sword, the first and one of the best of a long series of novels . Buchanan was also the author of many successful plays, among which may be mentioned Lady Clare, produced in 1883; Sophia (1886), an adaptation of Tom Jones; A Man's Shadow (189o) ; and The Charlatan (1894) .

He also wrote, in collaboration with Harriett

Jay, the melodrama Alone in London . In 1896 he became, so far as some of his work was concerned, his own publisher . In the autumn of 1900 he had a paralytic seizure, from which he never recovered . He died at Streatham on the loth of June 1901 . Buchanan's poems were collected into three volumes in 1874, into one volume in 1884; and as Complete Poetical Works (2 vols., 1901) . Among his poems should also be mentioned: " The Drama of Kings" (1871); " St Abe and his Seven Wives," a lively tale of Salt Lake City, published anonymously in 1872; and " Balder the Beautiful " (1877); " The City of Dream " (1888); " The Outcast: a Rhyme for the Time " (1881); and " The Wandering Jew " (1893) . His earlier novels, The Shadow of the Sword, and God and the Man (1881), a striking tale of a family feud, are distinguished by a certain breadth and simplicity of treatment which is not so noticeable in their successors, among which may be mentioned The Martyrdom of Madeline (1882); Foxglove Manor (1885); Effie Hetherington (1896); and Father Anthony (1898) . David Gray and other Essays, chiefly on Poetry (1868); Master Spirits (1873); A Poet's Sketch Book (1883), in which the interesting essay on Gray is reprinted; and A Look round Literature (1887), contain Buchanan's chief contributions to periodical literature . Morevaluable is The Land of Lorne (2 vols., 1871), a vivid record of yachting experiences on the west coast of Scotland . See also Harriett Jay, Robert Buchanan; some Account of his Life (1903) .