ESSAYS

As well as Buchanan’s poetry, I thought it worthwhile to add his essays and other non-fiction works to the site. As with the poetry, the choice of books is entirely arbitrary, depending on their availability. Any random essays I come across will also be added to the site. A list of Buchanan’s books of essays is available on the Bibliography page.

Books

THE FLESHLY SCHOOL OF POETRY AND OTHER PHENOMENA OF THE DAY

(The pamphlet version of Buchanan’s attack on the ‘Fleshly Poets’ published by Strahan and Company in 1872.)

Download the zipped .rtf version.

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THE COMING TERROR, AND OTHER ESSAYS AND LETTERS.

(Published by William Heinemann in 1891, this collection of Buchanan’s essays and letters includes his defence of Henry Vizetelly, On Descending into Hell.)

Download the zipped .rtf version.

A facsimile edition of ‘The Coming Terror’ is available for download in a variety for formats at the Internet Archive.

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The Internet Archive also has the following books of essays available for download:

David Gray and other Essays, chiefly on poetry (1868)

Master-Spirits (1873)

A Poet’s Sketch-Book. Selections from the prose writings of Robert Buchanan (1883)

A Look Round Literature (1887)

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Other Essays

Society’s Looking-glass

(From Temple Bar - August 1862.)

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George Heath, The Moorland Poet

(An appreciation of the Staffordshire poet from Good Words magazine - March 1871)

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Criticism as One of the Fine Arts

(Original version of the essay published (under the name ‘Walter Hutcheson’) in The Saint Pauls Magazine - April 1872. The essay, with a paragraph referring to Swinburne removed, was reprinted in Master-Spirits in 1873.)

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Charles Reade

(A personal reminiscence from Harper’s New Monthly Magazine - September 1884.)

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W. E. Forster: A Personal Reminiscence

(From The Pall Mall Gazette - 9 April, 1886.)

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The Voice of the Hooligan

(Buchanan’s attack on Kipling, published in the Contemporary Review - December 1899 (LXXVI, p.776-89). Sir Walter Besant’s reply, “Is It the Voice of the Hooligan?” Contemporary Review - January 1900 (LXXVII, p.27-39). Buchanan’s response to Sir Walter Besant, “The Ethics of Criticism.” Contemporary Review - 1900. The three essays were reprinted in The Living Age: A Weekly Magazine of Contemporary Literature and Thought and these are the versions available on this site. The original facsimile copies are available on the Cornell University Making of America site. A review from Literary Digest 19 (Dec. 23, 1899) of Buchanan’s original article is available on BoondocksNet.com.)

The Voice of “The Hooligan.” - Robert Buchanan
(The Living Age, Volume CCXXIV. The sixth quarterly volume of the seventh series. January, February, March, 1900. No. 2896. January 6, 1900 - p.1-13)

Is it the Voice of the Hooligan? - Sir Walter Besant
(The Living Age, Volume CCXXIV. No. 2902. February 17, 1900 - p. 401-410)

The Ethics of Criticism, A Word to Sir Walter Besant - Robert Buchanan
(The Living Age, Volume CCXXIV. No. 2907. March 24, 1900 - p. 729-736)

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My First Book: ‘Undertones’ and ‘Idyls and Legends of Inverburn’

(Buchanan’s contribution to the ‘My First Book’ feature of Jerome K. Jerome’s magazine, The Idler, which appeared in the May 1893 edition. The articles were collected and published by Chatto and Windus in 1894 as ‘My First Book’. A second edition appeared in 1897 and this was reprinted in 2003 by the University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii (ISBN: 1-4102-0759-5). The contributors to ‘My First Book’ are as follows: Grant Allen, R.M. Ballantyne, Walter Besant, M. E. Braddon, Robert Buchanan, Hall Caine, Marie Corelli, A. Conan Doyle, H. Rider Haggard, Bret Harte, Jerome K. Jerome, Rudyard Kipling, David Christie Murray, James Payn, ‘Q’, Morley Roberts, F. W. Robinson, W. Clark Russell, George R. Sims, Robert Louis Stevenson, John Strange Winter and I. Zangwill. ‘My First Book’ is now available at the Internet Archive where it can be downloaded in a variety of formats. The May 1893 edition of The Idler is available at Project Gutenberg.)

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Most of Buchanan’s essays originally appeared in the numerous literary journals being published at that time, so I thought it might be worthwhile to add the initial reviews of these essays to the site, especially since some led to further comments in the press. Of course, his most controversial essay, ‘The Fleshly School of Poetry’, is dealt with elsewhere, and the section below also includes some poetry reviews and a few adverts for his own short-lived magazine, Light.

Robert Buchanan and the Magazines