Robert Buchanan
Robert Buchanan was a Scottish writer who emerged from a well-off family, with his father being a tailor and a socialist leader. After leaving Glasgow University prematurely, he relocated to London to pursue a writing career but faced financial challenges initially due to his father's bankruptcy. Buchanan's marriage to Mary Jay and the adoption of her sister Harriet marked significant personal milestones in his life. His literary journey began with the publication of his first book in 1862, followed by a successful poetry collection, "Undertones," which earned him recognition among London’s literary elite. However, his reputation took a dramatic turn when he published a scathing critique of fellow poets Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Charles Algernon Swinburne in a review titled "The Fleshly School of Poetry." This harsh critique led to the alienation of his friends and a decline in his career. In later years, Buchanan struggled to reclaim his standing in the literary world, ultimately facing financial ruin and passing away in poverty, leaving behind a legacy complicated by both his literary contributions and his controversial critiques.
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Robert Buchanan
Poet
- Born: August 18, 1841
- Birthplace: Caverswall, Staffordshire, England
- Died: June 10, 1901
- Place of death: Streatham, England
Biography
Robert Buchanan grew up in comfortable circumstances in a household headed by a tailor who was also a Scottish socialist leader—and also named Robert Buchanan. The younger Buchanan left Glasgow University after only two years’ study and made his way to London to make his name as a writer. Without any means of support (his father had gone bankrupt), Buchanan struggled for a time but was eventually able to get on his feet financially through journalism and hack writing. In 1861 he married sixteen-year-old Mary Jay, adopting her baby sister Harriet. Harriet Jay would be Buchanan’s only child, and she would later become his biographer. The next year Buchanan published his first serious book, a collection of stories. The following year the poetry collection Undertones won him critical acclaim and provided him with entrée into the world of the London literati. A string of successes followed, but then Buchanan made a misstep that would change his life forever. Always possessed of a self-righteous sense of propriety, Buchanan bore ill will towards his less-inhibited contemporaries. When Dante Gabriel Rossetti published his Poems in 1870, Buchanan sensed an opportunity to put both Rossetti and Rossetti’s equally hedonistic friend, Charles Algernon Swinburne, in their places. Reviewing Rosetti’s work, Buchanan not only savaged the verses, he personally attacked Rossetti and Swinburne in a piece called The Fleshly School of Poetry, and Other Phenomena of the Day. The ruthlessness of his attack caused Buchanan’s friends to desert him. After a few years of publishing under a pseudonym, Buchanan tried to revive his reputation, but he found himself instead writing one pot boiler after another in a futile attempt to regain his financial footing. He died penniless, and his legacy is that of a man who sold his gifts too cheaply.
