BUCHANAN OBITUARIES

The Scotsman (Tuesday, 11 June, 1901 - p.5)

THE LATE ROBERT BUCHANAN

     MR ROBERT BUCHANAN, novelist, poet, and dramatist, has died within a year from the time he was struck down with paralysis. He died yesterday morning at the residence of his sister-in-law, at Streatham, London. For more than two years preceding the attack Mr Buchanan was subject to pneumonia and heart disease following on influenza. Next came insomnia, and the sturdy spirit breaking down, he was plunged into profound fits of melancholia. Two or three months later he made a wonderful recovery, and with characteristic energy resumed his work. He wrote a serial story, finished a play, and was making a rapid progress with his autobiography when the blow fell. He was talking with a friend in the highest spirits, discussing future plans, when, without warning or signal of danger, he was stricken down paralysed and speechless. It is little more than forty years since Mr Buchanan went to London. He told in a pathetic story welcomed by Thackeray, in the then young “Cornhill Magazine,” how he and his companion, having nowhere to lay their heads, passed the night in the park; how his comrade, a poet of promise, caught cold and died. Since then, as author and dramatist, he had been much to the fore. But some four or five years ago, entering into a speculation that proved disastrous, he became bankrupt, the copyright of his works disappearing with his other assets. A pension of £100 was granted him from the civil list by Mr Gladstone.
     Though born in Warwickshire in 1841, Robert Buchanan was the son of a native of Kilbarchan, who has been described as “schoolmaster, Socialist, lecturer, and author.” He was educated at the High School and University of Glasgow, where he had for his college companion and intimate friend David Gray, son of a weaver near Kirkintilloch. The friends and literary aspirants (so it is told in “Celebrities of the Century”) concocted the scheme of leaving Glasgow for London. Gray was to carry with him the inevitable poem which was to take the world by storm. Buchanan’s masterpiece was yet in embryo. They set out for the Metropolis, without giving warning to their friends, on the same evening, but, owing to a contretemps, by different lines of railway, and arriving at opposite sides of London about the same hour next morning, their companionship was for the time interrupted. Afterwards they shared a garret until the consumption from which Gray eventually died made his return to Scotland a necessity. He did not live to witness the recognition of his early efforts. In 1860 Mr Buchanan produced a volume of poems, “Undertones,” which attained considerable popularity. It was dedicated to the friend of his college days in a pathetic poem, entitled “To David in Heaven.” Five years later came “Idylls and Legends of Inverburn,” and the following year, “London Poems,” in which Mr Buchanan depicted humble life in the Metropolis with great vividness, much humour, and genuine pathos. The volume proved very popular. It was followed by a translation of Danish ballads and a collection of “Wayside Posies.” In 1871 appeared a lyrical drama, “Napoleon Fallen,” a volume of magazine articles issued under the title of “The Land of Lorne,” containing delightful sketches of Argyllshire; and “The Drama of Kings.” In 1876, under a pseudonym, he contributed a paper to the “Contemporary Review” on “The Fleshly School of Poetry,” which gave rise to much discussion and brought Mr Buchanan into warm controversy with Mr Swinburne. In the end Mr Buchanan withdrew some of his charges. In later years Mr Buchanan was more widely known as a novelist and as a dramatist, some of his stories and plays achieving a great success. His last years, as has been indicated, were somewhat clouded by financial difficulties, and towards the end of 1900, when he was struck down by paralysis, a movement was privately set on foot to raise a fund for the purpose of maintaining him in comfort during his closing days.

     The Press Association, in giving some details of Mr Buchanan’s illness, says:—In October last, after a morning’s severe cycling exertion, Mr Buchanan was prostrated by a paralytic stroke. Since then he has been completely invalided, totally bereft of the faculty of speech, and with the exception of a few carriage drives, wholly confined to his room. On Friday last he suffered an attack of congestion of the lungs, from which, being too weak to rally, he gradually sank, and passed peacefully away in the presence of his sisters-in-law, Misses Harriet Jay and M’Dear, who have nursed him throughout his illness. Mr Buchanan was a widower, his wife having predeceased him in 1881. He will be interred at Southend in the family grave, in which his wife and mother are buried. A book of his complete poems is even now going through the press. Proofs had been returned only the other day to Messrs Chatto & Windus, the publishers, by Miss Harriet Jay.

REMINISCENCES OF MR BUCHANAN.

     “One who knew Him” writes to last evening’s “Westminster Gazette:”—By the death of Robert Buchanan a stormy and turbulent literary career has been closed. Seen through the public spectacles, he cannot be said to have presented a very amiable personality. He was aggressive, combative, sudden of quarrel, and he often seemed unnecessarily bitter of speech. But to his friends “Bob” Buchanan was a very different man—kindly, genial, and even over-hospitable in the tranquillity of his own home, and little concerned about his quarrels with the world once the street door had been closed upon them. It was the harshness of his early struggles in literature that embittered Buchanan’s life. A little over forty years ago, when a lad of seventeen, he left his father’s office in Glasgow—the office of the old dead-and-gone newspaper, the “Sentinel”—where he made his beginnings in journalism. There, even as a boy, he used to be found lolling back in his father’s easy chair with a smoking cap on his head and a long pipe in his mouth, thinking out plots and verses, and devising marvellous letters to literary celebrities in the hope that he might disclose his young genius to advantage in the high places of literature. In one letter to George Henry Lewes he demanded—“Am I, or am I not, a poet?” while in another to Philip Hamerton he made the formal declaration—“I mean, after Tennyson’s death, to be Poet-Laureate.” Such ambitions would not long permit “Bob” to remain in the stodgy old office of the “Sentinel,” so off to London he determined to go. In this determination he was joined by three other youths from Glasgow. One was David Gray, the young poet, whose death was almost as tragic in its way as Chatterton’s; Charles Gibbon and William Black, the novelists, were the others. Buchanan and Gray were to go by the same train, but somehow they missed each other, and for days they were kept apart in London. Half-a-crown apiece was all they possessed after paying their fares, and to save his humble capital Gray spent his first night under the stars in Hyde Park—an experience which cost him his life, for he caught a chill which sent him home to die. Buchanan, however, found better shelter than was offered by the Hotel de Belle Etoile, and finally put up in a “dear old ghastly bankrupt garret” at 66 Stamford Street, Waterloo Bridge, for which he paid, when he had the money, seven shillings a week. Thither he bore his poor friend Gray, coughing piteously; and thither came such men as Monckton-Milnes, Laurence Oliphant, and Sydney Dobell to see the dying boy-poet.
     Nevertheless it was a happy, though hungry, time; and Buchanan once described his splendid isolation, for he made no friends, in his manner:—”What did my isolation matter when I had all the gods in Greece for company, to say nothing of the fays and trolls of Scottish Fairyland? Pallas and Aphrodite haunted that old garret; and on Waterloo Bridge, night after night, I saw Selene and all her nymphs; and when my heart sank low, the fairies of Scotland sang me lullabies! It was a happy time. Sometimes, for a fortnight together, I never had a dinner—save perhaps, on Sunday, when the good-natured Hebe would bring me covertly a slice from the landlord’s joint. My favourite place of refreshment was the Caledonian Coffee House in Covent Garden. Here, for a few coppers, I could feast on coffee and muffins—muffins saturated with butter, and worthy of the gods! Then, issuing forth, full-fed, glowing, oleaginous, I would light my pipe and wander out into the lighted streets.”
     Gradually, however, Buchanan made his way into literary journalism. Criticisms for the “Athenæum” brought him half-a-guinea a column, and work for the “Literary Gazette,” then edited by John Morley, fetched him about the same fee. Then he came into contact with Dickens, and contributed to “Household Words.” “Bob” Buchanan could never talk of Dickens without enthusiasm. Here is his memory of the great novelist:—”Two or three times a week, walking, black bag in hand, from Charing Cross Station to the office of ‘All the Year Round’ in Wellington Street, came the good, the only Dickens. From that good genius the poor straggler from fairyland got solid help and sympathy. Few can realise now what Dickens was then to London. His humour filled its literature like broad sunlight; the gospel of plum-pudding warmed every poor devil in Bohemia.”
     Buchanan’s first book was a little volume of verse published in Glasgow; others followed in London, and he was in the fair way to making a name as a poet—a name which, judging from the standard of to-day, it is not extravagant to suppose might have given him the coveted Laureateship—when he suddenly became enamoured of fiction, and rushed into print with “The Shadow of the Sword” in 1870, followed by “A Child of Nature,” “God and the Man,” and others, wedged in with all sorts of plays—even a Mormon melodrama entitled “St Abe and His Seven Wives.” Some of Buchanan’s French adaptations, however, made very good plays, notably “A Man’s Shadow,” produced by Mr Beerbohm Tree, which was a version of “Roger La Honte.” Notable also were his renderings into dramatic form of Fielding’s “Tom Jones” and Richardson’s “Clarissa Harlowe.” His methods of adaptation were interesting. “I never translate and I never extract,” he once told me. “I read the original through twice or perhaps three times, then close the book for ever, and write my play.” He, however, also did a good deal of original work, and wrote a number of Adelphi dramas in collaboration with George R. Sims. “A Society Butterfly” was written for Mrs Langtry.
     Robert Buchanan, however, was by no means so conspicuous a figure in literature as he might have been had his talents been better directed. He seemed only to flirt with the muses, so that we have a composite figure of a poet-novelist-dramatist with no outstanding merit in the combination save that of uncommon versatility. He lacked definite aim in his work, and therein lay his failure to achieve the highest success. Then his frank outspokenness gave him in a large degree the gentle art of making enemies. He hated hero-worship; indeed, he had no love for gods of any kind, so that when Rudyard Kipling and Lord Kitchener became the heroes of their hours Buchanan must needs attack them—not with a modest rapier like a Christian, but with the sword Excalibur.
     In his closing years he became sadly embittered with his stormy fortunes, and railed against the world. “It is a badly stage-managed world,” he said to me scarcely more than a year ago. “Oh, it will be all right on the night,” I replied, quoting from a well-known play. “Not a bit of it,” said Buchanan; “it is not rehearsing it needs, but reconstruction.”

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The Times (Tuesday, 11 June, 1901 - p.7)

OBITUARY.
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MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN.

     We regret to learn that Mr. Robert Buchanan’s long illness ended yesterday in his death at Streatham, in the house of his sister-in-law and sometime collaborator, Miss Harriet Jay. He was in his 60th year. In the middle of October, last year, Mr. Buchanan was struck down by paralysis without any warning. He had been in indifferent health for some time before, and had been obliged almost to give up work, depending upon the assistance of friends and a small Government pension. His savings had been swept away in a disastrous speculation, which obliged him to go through the Bankruptcy Court and to part with all his copyrights. Just before the stroke of paralysis, however, he had begun to gain strength and to recover his spirits, and had taken up work again. In his helpless state he had once more to rely upon the aid of friends. He had been a very generous man when he was prosperous himself. He had never refused help to any one in distress, and in his time of need he was generously assisted. His old friend Mr. John Coleman, actor and author, busied himself in starting a fund, and enough money was raised to meet the immediate needs of the case. It was seen from the first that no permanent recovery could be hoped for, and the end has come as a merciful release from a state of the most pitiful helplessness and living death.
     Mr. Buchanan was a man of great mental activity, who seemed at one time to be in the way to become a permanent intellectual force. Twenty-five years ago he was regarded by many good judges as the coming poet. But his energies were at once too widespread and too undisciplined for his mind to make a mark upon the age. It was not the fact that he was “ever a fighter” which told against him; it was his method of controversy and the nature of the subjects which took him into the field. Activity of mind he inherited, for his father was, in his own words, a “Socialist missionary,” lecturer, and journalist; and no doubt he inherited, too, that dissatisfaction with the world as it is which came out especially in his later life, and which made his humour often bitter and his endeavours to alter this “sorry scheme of things” seem over-hasty and petulant. Had he devoted himself with single aim either to poetry or to fiction, or even to criticism, he would probably have gained a lasting name. As it is, the future chronicler of letters will take note of him mainly as a very industrious worker in various fields of literature who was once connected with an incident that greatly stirred the literary world. This incident was, of course, Buchanan’s attack upon Rossetti in the pseudonymous article called “The Fleshly School of Poetry” which appeared in the Contemporary Review in 1871. Even to those who do not recollect the article the nature of the attack is sufficiently indicated by its title. In itself it was unimportant—merely one of those attacks to which most poets of distinction are subjected in the course of their careers. Mr. Buchanan himself soon saw that he had done Rossetti an injustice, and showed it, among other ways, by dedicating “God and the Man” to “An Old Enemy.” But it created some sensation at the time, and in Rossetti’s life it became “deplorably prominent,” since, according to his brother, it happened just at the worst possible moment and had an effect upon the poet’s mind from which he never recovered.
     At the time when this incident brought him prominently into the public eye, Mr. Buchanan had already attracted notice by his poetry. His first book, issued in 1860, was dedicated to the memory of his unfortunate friend David Gray, with whom he first came to London. They were at Glasgow University together, and, both bitten by the desire of literary fame, they determined to take their fortunes to the great city where they were sure speedy recognition and fame awaited them. The sequel was sad. Gray, a delicate lad, gradually wasted away in consumption, and he died before he had time to give full proof of his talent. Mr. Buchanan felt his loss keenly and always spoke of this early friendship with touching, wistful pathos. He himself was of more robust constitution, and he soon found his place in the world of letters. His work improved rapidly, and the reputation that he and Gray had dreamed of came to him in full measure. His first book of poems, “Undertones,” appeared in 1860, and his talent was recognized at once. The dedication verses “To David in Heaven” were of a moving pathos and beauty, and the young writer’s gift of expression was clear proof of poetic power. “London Poems” (1866) brought him into wider notice. The lyrics which composed it were the outcome of his life—a lonely and, for the most part, a sad life—in a London garret. They hit off phases and episodes now with humour, now with a pathetic force that touched the chord of tears, always vividly and effectively. “Napoleon Fallen” was ambitious, too ambitious for his powers, but there are fine passages in it. The same may be said about “The City of Dream,” which, however, won public praise from Mr. Lecky. Mr. Buchanan’s verse came too easily and he was too little self-critical to distil his inspiration into the vessels that would best have held it. Still, he had an individual talent; and, although it was intermittent, there was inspiration in his work. If he had kept to poetry, the promise of his youth might have been fulfilled. But his energies were dissipated in too many directions at once. He became a novelist and a playwright as well as a poet and critic. His fiction was vigorous and often boldly original. “God and the Man” is the best remembered of his novels, but there were several others well above the average. He was no more constant, however, to novel-writing than he had been to poetry. He found a profitable outlet for his energies in the drama, and for a number of years he provided the stage with a fairly constant succession of plays of all kinds. His greatest success was with an adaptation of “Tom Jones” which was played at the Vaudeville Theatre under the name of Sophia for nearly two years. Encouraged by this, he extracted plays also from “Joseph Andrews” and “Clarissa Harlowe” and managed again to hit the popular taste. Among his other successful efforts in this line was a familiar melodrama called Alone in London, which still holds the stage.
     Of late Mr. Buchanan had turned again to verse, but, though there was still plenty of vigour, there were lacking the poetic qualities that promised well in his earlier work. He had been for several years his own publisher, but he undertook this additional labour too late to profit much by it.

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The Guardian (11 June, 1901)

MEMORIAL NOTICES
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ROBERT BUCHANAN.

     We regret to announce the death of Mr. Robert Buchanan, which occurred at Streatham yesterday, after a long illness.
     Robert Buchanan was born in 1841 at Caverswall, Staffordshire. He was the only son of Robert Buchanan, a Scottish schoolmaster long settled in Lancashire, who had become well known both there (while Manchester was a sort of centre of Owenism) and afterwards at Glasgow as an exponent of the doctrines associated with the name of Robert Owen. The elder Buchanan lectured and contributed to the “Northern Star,” played a certain part as a Chartist—though always opposed to the employment of violent means,—and published some volumes of sociology. His son, the future author, was brought up in Glasgow and educated at the Academy, the High School, and at Glasgow University.
     At nineteen, having migrated to London, he published his first volume of poetry, “Undertones.” Few are the writers whose first attempts are really characteristic. “Undertones,” though many of its subjects are conventionally classical, showed at once the qualities and defects which never left Buchanan—the prodigious facility of versification, the abundant energy, the spirit of revolt which made him all his life an Ishmael among writers, the carelessness and the tendency to melodramatic effects. The volume contains nothing perfect, but nothing insipid; it rises occasionally to splendid heights of passion, as in the “Prologue to David in Heaven,” and even attains an austere dignity and limpidity of expression with “Penelope”; originality could hardly be denied to this first book, which to us who read it “after the event” seems in some respects to have heralded the dazzling poetic appearances of a few years later. But the public of 1860, which was only just beginning to tolerate Browning, ignored this remarkable essay. A few distinguished men, however, among whom were George Henry Lewes, William Hepworth Dixon, and John Westland Marston, encouraged the young poet with their approval. He published in 1865 a less striking collection of Highland idylls and legends; and in 1866 “London Poems,” having in the meantime recommended himself to the publishers as a compiler and translator of Danish. “London Poems” could not but confirm the impression of power which “Undertones” had made upon a few attentive readers; though several of these portraits of London types are marred by a false idyllicism, though the satire is too obvious and the humanitarian intention a little obtrusive, the book contains much excellent poetry and reflects an observant mind and a heart burning with the hatred of injustice. It was succeeded the year following by “North Coast Poems,” and “The Book of Orm” appeared in 1868. Buchanan, perhaps the most fertile author of his generation, was to attempt every form. In 1871 he wrote a lyrical drama, “Napoleon Fallen,” and in the same year “The Drama of Kings” was published. These works, in which the iconoclastic side of his genius was chiefly represented, were never, we fancy, put upon the stage. But, having turned to drama, Buchanan now produced at short intervals several plays which, without winning any remarkable success, made his name familiar to the theatre-going public. Among them may be mentioned “The Witchfinders,” produced at Sadler’s Wells in 1873; “A Madcap Prince,” which was presented at the Haymarket; and “A Nine Days’ Queen,” in which last piece the author’s sister-in-law, the novelist Miss Harriett Jay, made her first appearance. For some years Buchanan ceased to write for the stage, but a comedy called “Lady Clare” from his pen was produced at the Globe Theatre in 1883.
     But as early as 1872 the poet and playwright became known also as a critic. It was in that year that “The Fleshly School of Poetry” appeared. This virulent, anonymous, and unjustified attack upon a school of poets with which but for it Buchanan’s own work might easily have been confounded by an undiscriminating public gave rise to a violent literary quarrel. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the writers principally assailed, replied with the crushing article on “The Stealthy School of Criticism,” which now finds a place in his collected works; nor did the friends of Mr. Swinburne keep silent. In justice to Buchanan it should here be noticed that he candidly acknowledged the authorship of the offensive essay, and acknowledged also that he had not been justified in the personal imputations he had made against some men of genius whose artistic ideals were not his. From this time he contributed frequently, and on all sorts of subjects, to the periodicals; he was for long most intimately connected with the “Contemporary Review.” With so voluminous an author it would be hopeless to attempt any sort of classification of his more ephemeral work. He appeared perhaps most often in the reviews in the character of a literary iconoclast, and amongst his recent diatribes our readers will hardly have forgotten the attack on Mr. Rudyard Kipling, “the poet of the Hooligan.” In 1874 Buchanan published a collected edition of his poems. In 1875 “Saint Abe and his Seven Wives” startled and enlivened both the English and the American public. This witty and vigorous satire directed against Mormonism was perhaps the most wholly successful effort of Buchanan’s muse, and, by a kind of fatality, it was issued anonymously, and for long confidently attributed to Lowell. The work was reprinted in Buchanan’s name as lately as 1898.
     He brought out shortly after this his first novel, “The Shadow of the Sword,” and from this time forward he produced more fiction than anything else. No one who knows Buchanan’s best poetry can doubt that as a novelist he fell nearly always far below his highest powers. Fiction, however, was the easiest way to win a popular recognition that had escaped him, and having much imagination, and gradually acquiring the technical part of the story-teller’s art, he was in the latter part of his career successful above the average with a prolific output of stories, some of them adroitly sensational and others very obviously written “with a purpose.” It will be enough to mention a few of Buchanan’s earlier performances in fiction. “A Child of Nature” was published in 1879, “God and the Man” in 1881, “The Martyrdom of Madeline” in 1882, “Love Me for Ever” in 1883, “The New Absalom” in 1884. He continued to produce novels until the end; “Andromeda” appeared only a year ago. But his abandonment of poetry, which we are constrained to attribute to disappointment and disgust, was not quite complete. “Ballads of Life, Love, and Humour” (1882) should not be forgotten; “The City of Dream” (1888), a somewhat tedious pilgrim’s progress through pages of invective alternating with vague and languid descriptions, was intended to express the poet’s yearnings for a better social state; and last year saw the publication of a rhapsodical collection of satires, often effective and wholly outrageous to the spirit of the hour, directed against luxury, greed, and—Imperialism. It ought to be mentioned that, having quarrelled with the publishers, Buchanan was from 1890 onwards for several years to some extent his own publisher.
     Any general estimate of Buchanan’s works as a whole would be evidently premature. We cannot forbear expressing a belief that in his lifetime, through a variety of causes to which he himself contributed not a little, justice has not been done to his real poetical powers—powers which, indeed, he sometimes did his best to obscure by a constant attitude of revolt, by little eccentricities, and by frequent lapses of taste and carelessness of form. But he was unfortunate in the moment at which he appeared before the world; he was eclipsed before he had had a chance of recognition by men of greater powers who, with widely different ideals, appeared superficially to resemble him. Let us hope that not everything will perish of the perverse and inconsequent but virile and magnanimous idealist.

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Daily Express (11 June, 1901 - p.1)

LITERATURE’S LOSS.
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DEATHS OF SIR W. BESANT AND
ROBERT BUCHANAN.
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     Sir Walter Besant died on Sunday afternoon at his house in Frognal End, Hampstead. Though he had been seriously ill for several weeks, the end was not expected immediately, and came as a great shock.
     Sir Walter’s health had for many months been such as to cause his friends serious concern, and it was noted with sorrow how greatly he appeared to have aged in the new century. It is only a matter of weeks since he was actually confined to the house.
     Death was due to a complication of internal ailments, following upon gastric catarrh. Lady besant was with her husband to the last.
     The death was also reported yesterday of Mr. Robert Buchanan, at Streatham. Mr. Buchanan suffered a severe stroke of paralysis some months ago, and it was recognised from the first that his case was hopeless.

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     Appreciations of the life-work of Sir Walter Besant and of Mr. Robert Buchanan will be found on Page 4.

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The New York Times (11 June, 1901)

ROBERT W. BUCHANAN DEAD.
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Career as Poet, Novelist, Playwright, and Controversialist Started in a London Garret.

     LONDON, June 10.—Robert Williams Buchanan, poet, critic, and novelist, is dead.

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     Robert Williams Buchanan, poet, critic, novelist, playwright, and literary controversialist, was born at Caversnall, Staffordshire, England, Aug. 18, 1841. He was the only son of Robert Buchanan, Socialist, missionary, and journalist. Having been graduated from the University of Glasgow, he went to London with his schoolmate, Daniel Gray, who, like Buchanan, was destined to achieve a reputation as a poet. The two shared a garret room. Buchanan’s literary career began in 1860. The same year he and Gray reached London. The under world of London had a great fascination for him, and his first work of note, “Undertones,” was inspired by his study of the poor and erring of the great city. From 1862 to 1872 he produced several books of poems, among them “London Poems,” “North Coast Poems,” and “Napoleon Fallen,” a lyrical drama. His first drama was “The Witchfinder.” Others were “A Madcap Prince,” “A nine-Days’ Queen,” “Lady Clare,” “Alone in London,” “Sophia,” “Joseph’s Sweetheart,” “Dick Sheridan,” and “The Charletan.” Among his novels were “The Shadow of the Sword,” “God and the Man,” “Love Me Forever,” and “The Gifted Lady.”
     There is one incident in the career of Buchanan which is as yet uninterpreted to his advantage. In 1869 Dante Gabrielle Rossetti recovered the manuscript of a number of poems from the coffin of his wife, who had died seven years before, and published them. They, together with poems by Rossetti’s friends, were bitterly assailed by Buchanan in an article under a pseudonym, which appeared in The Contemporary; later the article, which was entitled “The Fleshly School of Poetry,” was brought out in pamphlet form. Rossetti was seriously affected by the criticism, and never entirely recovered from the blow, which, by his morbid sentimentality, he imagined had been delivered directly at the memory of his dead wife.
     But Rossetti did not go unavenged; the poet Swinburne issued a counter pamphlet, which, under the title of “Under the Microscope,” flayed Buchanan alive.
     Mr. Buchanan visited the United States in 1884-5. In 1893 he published “The Wandering Jew,” a poem which led to much controversy in the English journals.

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The Stage (13 June, 1901 - p.14)

DEATH OF MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN.
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     On Monday morning the long and hopeless illness of Mr. Robert Buchanan came to a merciful end. Since October last Mr. Buchanan had lingered in a helpless state from the effects of a paralytic stroke. The immediate cause of death was congestion of the lungs. He died at the residence of his sister-in-law, Miss Harriet Jay, at Streatham. Mr. Buchanan, who had been a widower since 1881, leaves no children.
     Robert Williams Buchanan, child of a Scots father and an English mother, was born at Caverswall, in Staffordshire, on August 18, 1841. Thus in barely sixty years of life Mr. Buchanan crowded the writings of an exceptionally busy and varied literary career. He left few departments of literature untouched. Poetry, plays, novels, essays, and polemics of all sorts engaged his large gifts and strong, even intractable individuality. In poetry he first made his mark—as a very young man, between the years 1860-5; and in poetry—especially in some of his ballads—his work is likeliest to survive. As a poet he had imagination, feeling, felicity of phrase, often intensity of mood and expression; and if his poetry could not sustain the higher qualities, if it was too personal, erratic, and at times crude and distasteful in character, it had more than a spark of the divine fire. His poetic endowment, indeed, was genuine and considerable; and that it should have been so widely diffused and should have ended in so little perfected work would seem to be one of the losses of modern literature. The energies that Mr. Buchanan gave to playwriting had their outcome on a much lower plane. One recalls the farcical futilities of such a piece as The Strange Adventures of Miss Brown. Some of the most successful attempts on Mr. Buchanan’s part in a branch of authorship in which he tried again and again were in plays of semi-originality—his Sophia and Joseph’s Sweetheart, for example, which had long runs at the Vaudeville. Sweet Nancy, which he dramatised from Rhoda Broughton’s novel, was another instance, as was A Man’s Shadow, from the French of Roger la Honte. His adaptations, indeed, were numerous. They included, further, Lady Clare (Le Maître de Forges), Agnes (L’Ecole des Femmes), Partners (based on Daudet’s “Fromont Jeune et Risler Aîné”), The Struggle for Life (in collaboration with Fred Horner from La Lutte pour la Vie), Theodora (Sardou), and the last of his pieces (in collaboration with Miss Jay) to be produced, Two Little maids from School (Les Demoiselles de St. Cyr), which was given at the Metropole, Camberwell, on November 21, 1898. In his original works Mr. Buchanan chiefly won the favour of playgoers in melodrama. Alone in London is a case in point. This freely compounded piece he wrote in conjunction with Harriett Jay. It was brought out by Mrs. Conover at the Olympic on November 2, 1885. In the provinces Alone in London has enjoyed a long-standing popularity. Some years later—beginning in 1891—Mr. Buchanan joined George R. Sims in Adelphi drama, the first fruits of the collaboration being The Trumpet Call, which was succeeded by The White Rose, The Lights of Home, and The Black Domino. With the late Sir Augustus Harris he wrote A Sailor and His Lass for Drury Lane. Amongst more ambitious plays may be named some early dramatisations—The Queen of Connaught (Olympic), The Shadow of the Sword (Olympic), and  Storm Beaten (Adelphi)—from his own novels; also The Bride of Love (Adelphi), in verse; The Charlatan (Haymarket), comedy, in which Mr. Beerbohm Tree made a hit; The Sixth Commandment (Shaftesbury), drama; and Dick Sheridan (Comedy), drama. In lighter vein were Fascination, in collaboration with Miss Jay (Olympic), That Doctor Cupid (Vaudeville), The Romance of the Shopwalker (Vaudeville), also jointly with Miss Jay; and various others. Often as he wooed fortune as a playwright, and great as the attraction of the stage evidently was for him, Mr. Buchanan did in this medium little that was worthy of his better powers. His most effective work, curiously enough in a writer of much originality and personal force, came from other inspiration than his own. As a dramatist, in fact, he made the least of his successes; and this failure may have done much to induce the bitterness with which in later years he spoke of theatrical conditions. In fiction, some of his achievements were more decisive. “The Shadow of the Sword,” “A Child of Nature,” “The Martyrdom of Madeleine,” and “God and the Man,” are amongst his best known novels. Consideration of Mr. Buchanan as controversialist need not detain us here. His opinions were more vehement than well considered, and were frequently recanted, as in so crucial a case as “The Fleshly School of Poetry,” the Contemporary Review article on the poetry of Swinburne and Rossetti.
     The funeral will take place at Southend.

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The Staffordshire Sentinel (13 June, 1901)

Mr. Robert Buchanan, the author, who died on Monday, was, of course, a local man. He was born at Caverswall in 1841, and was the only son of Robert Buchanan, and Margaret Williams, of Stoke. Robert Buchanan pere was one of the earliest disciples of Robert Owen in North Staffordshire, and took a prominent part in the great strike of 1836, afterwards going to Scotland to follow his trade there, but becoming instead a “Socialist, missionary, and journalist.”

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Southend Standard and Essex Weekly Advertiser (14 June, 1901)

DEATH OF MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN.
_____

THE FAMOUS NOVELIST’S FORMER
CONNECTION WITH SOUTHEND.

     On Monday, at Streatham Common, Mr. Robert Buchanan, a popular novelist, passed away in his sixtieth year after a long and painful illness, consequent upon a paralytic stroke. To the influential Southender of from thirty to twenty years’ standing, Mr. Buchanan was well-known; for, prior to his wife’s death, Mr. Buchanan frequently visited the town, in company with a brother and his sister-in-law (Miss Jay), and took up residence at Hamlet Court, and at another time in Devereux Terrace. Mrs. Buchanan died and was buried here and was attended in her last illness by Dr. Phillips. As far as we can gather, her demise occurred at Hamlet Court, in November, 1881.
     Speaking of the novelist’s death sickness the “Times” says—In the middle of October, last year, Mr. Buchanan was struck down by paralysis without any warning. He had been in indifferent health for some time before, and had been obliged almost to give up work, depending upon the assistance of friends and a small Government pension. His savings had been swept away in a disastrous speculation, which obliged him to go through the Bankruptcy Court and to part with all his copyrights. Just before the stroke of paralysis however, he had begun to gain strength and to recover his spirits, and had taken up work again. In his helpless state he had once more to rely upon the aid of friends. He had been a very generous man when he was prosperous himself. He had never refused to help anyone in distress and in his time of need he was generously assisted.
     After dealing with his work as a poet, author and playwright, the great daily organ proceeds—The future chronicler of letters will take note of him mainly as a very industrious worker in various fields of literature who was once connected with an incident that greatly stirred the literary world. This incident was, of course, Buchanan’s attack upon Rossetti in the pseudonymous article called “The Fleshly School of Poetry” which appeared in the “Contemporary Review” in 1871. Even to those who do not recollect the article the nature of the attack is sufficiently indicated by its title. In itself it was unimportant—merely one of those attacks to which most poets of distinction are subjected in the course of their careers. Mr. Buchanan himself soon saw that he had done Rossetti an injustice, and showed it, among other ways, by dedicating “God and the Man” to “An Old Enemy.” But it created some sensation at the time, and in Rossetti’s life it became “deplorably prominent,” since according to his brother, it happened just at the worst possible moment and had an effect upon the poet’s mind from which he never recovered.
     With one of his most widely read novels, “Andromeda”, Southend is closely connected, for the scenes of the principal events in an exciting book are laid at Canvey Island, Southend, Rayleigh, Benfleet etc.
     Indeed, his opening chapter is as follows:

     “Early in the fifth decade of the present century when the quaint fairy Crinolina was waving her wand over merry England and transforming its fair women into funny reproductions of their ancestresses under Good Queen Bess; when young townsmen wore white hats and peg top trousers, and when nearly every house boasted its dismal array of horsehair-stuffed chairs and sofas covered with that most horrible invention, the antimacassar—early, that is to say, in the married life of her Majesty Queen Victoria, there stood in the loneliest part of Canvey Island at the mouth of the Thames a solitary tumble-down inn, called the Lobster Smack.
     “Its landlord was a certain Job Endell, who had once been a deep sea mariner, and, if report did not greatly belie him, a savage sea-dog and pirate; its patrons and customers, few and far between, were such fishermen, bargees, lightermen, and riverside characters as were driven in their various vessels by stress of weather or freaks of the tide into the little muddy haven close to the inn door. From time to time the little inn resounded with the merriment of such wayfarers, but as a rule it was as deserted as its surroundings; and the aforesaid Job Endell was the lonely monarch of all he surveyed.
     Now and then, however, Job had the privilege of entertaining a stray visitor from London, attracted thither by the chances of fishing in the river or sea-bird shooting in the creeks or along the sea-wall and at the time when our story opens two such visitors, who combined the profession of art with the pleasures of cheap sport, were occupying the only habitable guest-chambers in the inn. The little dark parlour was lumbered with their guns, their fishing rods, and their nets, as well as with the paraphernalia of their profession — easels, brushes, canvases, sketch books, pipes, and cigar boxes.
     “Canvey Island exists still, and so, curiously enough, does the Lobster Smack; and even to-day, when the neighbouring shores of Kent and Essex are covered with new colonies and ever-increasing resorts of the tourist, Canvey is practically terra incognita, and its one house of public entertainment as solitary and desolate as ever. Flat as a map, so intermingled with creeks and runlets, that it is difficult to say where water ends and land begins. Canvey Island lies, a shapeless octopus, right under the high ground of Benfleet and Hadleigh, and stretches out muddy and slimy feelers to touch and dabble in the deep water of the flowing Thames.
     Away across the marshes rise the ancient ruins of Hadleigh Castle, further eastward, the high spire and square tower of Leigh Church; and still further eastward, the now flourishing town of Southend, called by its enemies Southend-on-Mud. There is plenty of life yonder, and sounds of life; the railway has opened up every spot and in the track of the railway has followed the cheap tourist and the Salvation Army; but down here on Canvey Island everything is still as silent, as lonely, and as gruesome as it was fifty or a hundred years ago—nay, as it was a thousand years past, ere the walls of Hadleigh had fallen into ruin, and when the loopholes of the Castle commanded all approaches of the enemy from the shore or the deep sea.”

     As we stated in the heading, Mrs. Buchanan was buried in St. John’s Churchyard, Southend, and a representative was despatched to ascertain particulars of the little known event. After a long search, with the aid of the sexton, the grave was discovered in the north-east corner, near the wall, and close by the Rumble enclosure. It is a brick grave and was covered with long grass, and the low head-stone was nearly hidden from view. The inscription thereon is: “Sacred to the memory of Mary Buchanan, who fell asleep at Southend-on-Sea, November 7th, 1881 aged 36 years.” We understand that another interment—that of a sister—was made in the grave about seven years ago, but no record is given on the headstone. The sexton states that up to a few years ago he was paid to keep the grave in repair, but since then it has not been attended to. A few weeks since, however, some ladies made enquires and diligent search in the churchyard for the resting place, but were then unable to find it.
     The following pathetic story is told by G. R. Sims, in the “Morning Leader”: “Once at Southend we went to bed at three. At half-past eight he was up and ready for a stroll before breakfast. We walked about Southend for an hour. Suddenly my companion left me saying “Go back to the hotel. I’ll be with you directly.” When he came in I noticed that the knees of his trousers were covered with chalk. He had gone to the churchyard to see the grave of his wife. He had found the gate locked and had climbed over the wall.”
     We understand that Mr. Buchanan’s remains will rest in the town he so much appreciated; it being the intention to inter the coffin beside that of the wife on Friday morning.

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The Penny Illustrated Paper (15 June, 1901 - p.3)

The Late Robert Buchanan.

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The Literary World (1 July, 1901 - Vol. XXXII, p.105)

ROBERT WILLIAM BUCHANAN.

     The late Robert William Buchanan, whose death is one of the losses of last month, had reached a prominent place but not altogether a comfortable one in English literature. His vigor, his energy and his successes have become matters of history. His temper, independence, and bluntness, speaking what he thought the truth, but not always in love, made him some enemies. The path of journalism furnished his steps to fame. His first failures were encountered in dramatic experiments. He wrote poetry himself with bare hands, and handled other poets likewise without gloves. His attacks upon Rossetti and Swinburne, and later upon Kipling, were severe and are memorable. His best known novels are The Shadow of the Sword, God and the Man, and Rev. Annabel Lee. Hot Scotch blood flowed in his veins. He fought a good fight, gave and received hard blows, and rests from work which was in many senses labor.

__

     Just as he passes from us comes from the English press of Grant Richards Robert Buchanan: the Poet of Modern Revolt, by Archibald Stodart-Walker, which is not an exaltation, certainly not a depreciation, perhaps most exactly an appreciation, of the poet and his verse. His point of view is defined, the tones of his voice tested, his splendid sincerity commended. His “significance” is thus measured:

     Mr. Buchanan’s significance lies then in the fact that he has used, as a subject for poetry, the great truths science has taught, and those his own speculative imagination seemed to discern behind the cloud of conventional belief. Disdainful of using the mighty medium of poetry as a simple reflector of things as they are in a conventional sense, he has used these great truths, or attempts at truth, as the bases of his poetical aspirations, and in so doing has accomplished what he longed to see attempted in his earlier outlook on life. It is another question whether in so doing he has been true to literature and to history.

__

     Simultaneously with English notices of the above work come promises of a new and complete edition of Mr. Buchanan’s poems, and another critical volume on the man and his verse by Henry Murray, to be published by Philip Welby.

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Sir Walter Besant died the day before Robert Buchanan and this coincidence led to comparisons of the two writers (much to Buchanan’s disadvantage, it has to be said) in the Daily Express and various New York newspapers. Since these pieces wander off the subject of Buchanan I have placed them on a separate page:

Sir Walter Besant (14/8/1836 - 9/6/1901) and Robert Buchanan (18/8/1841 - 10/6/1901)

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A Note on the Last Months of Buchanan’s Life

In Chapter 30 of her biography of Buchanan, Harriett Jay deals with the final months of his life in these few brief paragraphs:

“     The next morning, Friday, October 19th, his high spirits had not deserted him, for I heard him whistling merrily before he came in to breakfast. I asked him if the muddled vision had troubled him again, and he replied in the negative, assuring me that he felt particularly well in every way. Breakfast over and the morning papers read, we set off on our bicycles together.
     After a ride in Regent’s Park, which lasted close upon two hours, we returned home. He partook of a hearty lunch, and then fell asleep in an easy chair beside the fire. He awoke refreshed, and after he had drunk a cup of tea and had written some half-dozen letters, proposed that we should cycle again. “I should like to have a good spin down Regent Street,” he said. Those were the last words he ever spoke, for five minutes later the cruel stroke had descended upon him which rendered him helpless as a little child.
     For eight months, passed in the endurance of much pain, his life was spared. On the morning of the 10th of June, 1901, he passed away in blessed unconsciousness, in the sixtieth year of his age.”

News of Buchanan’s stroke and subsequent reports of his condition appeared in several newspapers for the next few weeks:

The Observer (21 October, 1900 - p.5)

ILLNESS OF MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN.
_____

     We regret to hear that Mr. Robert Buchanan, the well-known poet, novelist, and dramatist, is seriously ill. He was seized with apoplexy at his London residence at five o’clock on Friday afternoon, which has resulted in paralysis of the right side and complete loss of speech. Under the care of Sir William Broadbent, Mr. Buchanan was last night reported to be holding his own as well as could possibly be expected under the sad circumstances. He is fifty-nine years of age.

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The Times (22 October, 1900 -p.7)

     Mr. Robert Buchanan, who is suffering from cerebral hæmorrhage, resulting in paralysis of the right side and complete loss of speech, shows no symptom of improvement. Yesterday afternoon at 2 o’clock the following bulletin was issued by his medical attendants:—“Mr. Buchanan continues in the same critical state.” Later intelligence was in no way more reassuring.

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Daily Express (22 October, 1900 -p.5)

MR. R. BUCHANAN PARALYSED.
_____

SERIOUS CONDITION OF THE WELL-KNOWN
DRAMATIST AND NOVELIST.

     Mr. Robert Buchanan, poet, novelist and man of letters, is suffering from cerebral hemorrhage, which has resulted in paralysis of the right side and complete loss of speech.
     His condition shows no signs of improvement.
     The following bulletin was issued at three o’clock yesterday afternoon by Mr. Buchanan’s medical attendants, Dr. J. G. Gorham and Dr. A. Stodart Walker:—
     “Mr. Buchanan continues in the same critical state.”
     Later news last evening was not more reassuring.

___

The New York Times (22 October, 1900)

ROBERT BUCHANAN VERY ILL.

     LONDON. Oct. 21.—Robert Buchanan, the novelist, has had a cerebral hemorrhage, which was followed by paralysis of the right side and complete loss of speech.
     His condition is very critical.

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The Scotsman (Tuesday 23 October, 1900 - p.4)

     Dr Gorham, of Clapham, saw Mr Robert Buchanan yesterday morning, with Dr Stodart Walker, of Edinburgh. The following bulletin was issued:—“Paralytic condition same as yesterday, and Mr Buchanan has passed a bad night. Otherwise there is no change to record.” Dr Gorham, of Clapham, saw Mr Robert Buchanan later, with Dr Stodart Walker, and the following bulletin was issued:—”Mr Buchanan passed a restless night, and there is little change in the hemiplegia and aphasic conditions, but on the whole his general health shows some improvement.”

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Daily Express (23 October, 1900 - p.2)

     The subject acquires a very pathetic interest now that Mr. Buchanan is stricken with paralysis. He has done excellent work in adaptation, notably “Sophia” (from Fielding’s “Tom Jones”), though he is less happy in original dramatic work. He has always been an ardent controversialist, throwing himself with passionate insistence into every question of the hour. To his great honour he always fought for what he believed to be the weaker side. As a hard-hitter he probably has no equal. May he long be spared to renew his battles and to add his share to the colour and interest of life. We should be the poorer without him.

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Daily Express (25 October, 1900 - p.5)

Mr. R. BUCHANAN’S CONDITION.
_____

     At eleven o’clock last night the following bulletin was issued on Mr. Robert Buchanan’s condition:—
“There is no change to record. The general strength is fairly maintained.”
     The bulletin is signed by Drs. Gorham, Harry Campbell, and Stodart Walker.

___

The Times (26 October, 1900 - p.7)

     The following bulletin was issued at 11 o’clock last night in regard to Mr. Buchanan’s illness:—“Robert Buchanan’s condition practically remains unchanged, but his strength is fairly maintained, and he takes a certain amount of nourishment. The paralysis of the right side is still complete, and his speech is limited to the words “yes” and “no,” but his mental faculties are a little improved, and he is quite sensible of the efforts of his devoted nurses and friends to promote his comfort.”

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The Times (27 October, 1900 - p.11)

     At 11 o’clock last night the following bulletin was issued with regard to Mr. Robert Buchanan’s illness:—“The condition of Mr. Robert Buchanan remains unaltered. The paralysis shows no sign of mitigating, and there is no further recovery of the power of speech. He is still but partially conscious.”

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The Observer (28 October, 1900 - p.6)

MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN.
_____

     There is a slight improvement in the condition of Mr. Robert Buchanan since Friday night. He had a good night’s rest and takes some nourishment, and is more sensible of his surroundings, but the paralysis of his right side and his inability to speak still continue unchanged.

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The Times (29 October, 1900 - p.9)

     A slight improvement in the condition of Mr. Robert Buchanan was reported on Saturday. He had had a good night’s rest, took some nourishment, and was more sensible of his surroundings, but the paralysis of his right side and his inability to speak continued unchanged. At 11 o’clock last night the following bulletin was issued:—“Mr. Buchanan has passed a very restless day. He has been conscious at intervals, otherwise his condition is unchanged.—J. G. GORHAM, M.D.”

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The Times (30 October, 1900 - p.7)

     The subjoined bulletin was issued yesterday with reference to the serious illness of Mr. Robert Buchanan:—“Mr. Robert Buchanan’s condition still remains critical. The paralysis shows no sign of abatement, and there is no improvement towards a return to consciousness. He is unable to utter more than ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’”

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The Era (3 November, 1900 - Issue 3241)

MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN.
_____

     Mr Robert Buchanan, the well-known poet and playwright, who has been suffering from paralysis, and is still in a dangerous condition, is a native of Staffordshire, where he was born in 1841. His father, Robert Buchanan, was a schoolmaster, journalist, and social lecturer. Mr Buchanan was educated at the Glasgow High School and the University. He began life practically with a halfpenny in his pocket, came to London with his great friend David Gray in 1860, and began to write for newspapers. In 1863 he brought out his first book of poems, “Undertones.” It was handled rather viciously by certain of the critics, and they prompted Mr Buchanan to reply, perhaps somewhat injudiciously, to several who had attacked him. Perhaps this accounts for the fact that Mr Buchanan, whose talents nobody would deny, became a fighter, and like the late Charles Reade, scented danger and war afar. In 1865 he published his now forgotten book of “Idylls and Legends of Inverburn.” The next year came out his “London Poems,” which at once landed him into the foremost rank of writers of sterling honest poetry. Thenceforth amongst the writers of great verse Mr Buchanan had to be reckoned with. Quickly followed then volumes of verses every year. Perhaps one of his greatest achievements was “The City of Dream” in 1888. In 1871, by the way, he made a violent attack in the Contemporary Review on the fleshly school of poets, one of his most pungent satires being directed against Rossetti and his followers. This, although it was signed in the name of Thomas Maitland, brought down upon Mr Buchanan an avalanche of abuse, and in later years he saw the folly of his own youthful exclamations. The prefix to perhaps one of the greatest novels in the English language, “God and the Man,” explains Mr Buchanan’s real recalcitrant sentiments. “God and the Man” was turned into a play called Storm-Beaten at the Adelphi Theatre in the late eighties. One of his most successful plays was A Nine Days’ Queen. A Man’s Shadow, which he did for Mr Tree, and The Charlatan must be ranked amongst his successes. For Mr Thomas Thorne at the Vaudeville Theatre he adapted many plays from the old novelists, including Sophia, Joseph Andrews, Clarissa Harlowe, A Midnight Marriage, and The Romance of the Shopwalker. Besides this Mr Buchanan was always turning out novels that more or less made their mark. For Mr Comyns Carr at the Comedy Theatre he wrote Dick Sheridan, in which Mr H. B. Irving played the title-rôle, and made a distinctive advance in his profession. When Mrs Langtry took the Opera Comique Theatre it was Mr Buchanan’s A Society Butterfly with which she commenced her campaign and brought down the wrath of a well-known dramatic critic, causing a controversy that was almost a nine days’ wonder. Neither side gave in, and nobody knows to this day the real secret of the trouble. Lady Clare should not be omitted from the list of Mr Robert Buchanan’s successes, and certainly amongst his books “The Shadow of the Sword” should be particularly referred to as one of those marvellous works in which this talented author drew some of the finest conceptions of the study of honour and conscience that have ever been presented to the reading public. Mr Buchanan as a poet, a dramatist, and a novelist holds a unique position, inasmuch that no other novelist, with, perhaps, the exception of Lord Lytton and Charles Reade, has ever been able to win success in three different departments of literature. Whatever anyone’s opinions of Mr Buchanan may be in any particular sphere in which he sought to secure renown there can only be one final verdict in regard to his all-round talent.

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The Times (5 November, 1900 - p.6)

     Mr. Robert Buchanan was on Thursday last safely removed in an ambulance to the neighbourhood of Streatham-common. The change has been beneficial, and many of the urgent symptoms have disappeared. The extreme weakness and paralysis, however, remain, and the patient is still watched with great anxiety by his nurses and medical attendants.

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Daily Express (Wednesday, 7 November, 1900 - p.5)

SAD NEWS OF MR. R. BUCHANAN.
_____

     Although it is evident that Mr. Robert Buchanan has now passed the dangerous stage of his illness, his recovery will probably be marked by a sad affliction, which is indicated in the following bulletin issued by his medical attendants last evening:—
     “Mr. Buchanan had a good night, and has taken nourishment, but the paralytic symptoms still remain. There is little hope that he will ever recover his speech.”

___

The Scotsman (7 November, 1900 - p.8)

     The following bulletin was issued last evening regarding the condition of Mr Robert Buchanan:—“Mr Buchanan had a good night, and has taken nourishment, but the paralytic symptoms still remain. There is little hope that he will ever recover his speech.—Harry Campbell, J. J. Gorham.”

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The Scotsman (8 November, 1900 - p.4)

     Mr Robert Buchanan had a bad night on Tuesday, but was calmer and more conscious yesterday.

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The Scotsman (13 November, 1900 - p.4)

     Doctors Gorham and Harry Campbell saw Mr Robert Buchanan yesterday. They state that the patient continues to gain strength, but other conditions are unchanged.

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The New York Times (17 November, 1900)

LONDON LITERARY LETTER.
_____

Written for THE NEW YORK TIMES SATURDAY REVIEW by
William L. Alden.

     LONDON, Nov. 6.—

     ..... Mr. Robert Buchanan is lying at the point of death with an apoplectic stroke. The doctors give no hope of his recovery, and before this letter reaches New York Mr. Buchanan will probably have left us. This is not the time for any estimate of his work. We can only grieve over the approaching loss of a many-sided-man who, although he frequently said and did things apparently for the purpose of making enemies, has always been known by his friends to be a warm-hearted, genial, and even gentle man.

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The New York Times (29 December, 1900)

LONDON LITERARY LETTER.
_____

Written for THE NEW YORK TIMES SATURDAY REVIEW by
William L. Alden.

     LONDON, Dec. 18.—

     ..... Mr. Robert Buchanan is still alive, and at times he is said to be somewhat better. There is, however, no longer the slightest ground for hope that he will recover. How long he may linger in the state of living death in which he lies no one can foretell, but even his most sanguine friends now admit that he is little more than a living corpse. It is a sad fate to overtake a man who was so full of life. He had made mistakes like all the rest of us, but they will be forgotten, and men will remember only the noble qualities which were incontestibly his.

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The Guardian (16 April, 1901 - p.5)

     Mr. Robert Buchanan, whose illness a few months back aroused widespread interest, is still lying in a half-helpless condition; and it is now announced (says the “Westminster Gazette”) that his devoted attendant, his sister-in-law, Miss Harriet Jay, the well-known authoress and actress, is confined to bed with an attack of pneumonia supervening on influenza.

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The Times (Thursday, 13 June, 1901 - p.6)

     The funeral of Mr. Robert Buchanan will take place to-morrow. The remains will be conveyed by the train leaving Liverpool-street at 10.20 to Southend-on-Sea, where Mr. Buchanan’s wife and mother are interred.

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The Times (Saturday, 15 June, 1901 - p.11)

     The funeral of Mr. Robert Buchanan took place yesterday at Southend-on-Sea, and by the expressed desire of the family it was strictly private. Among those present were Mrs. Bassett, Miss Harriett Jay, Miss Bernardi, Mr. Henry Murray, Mr. Pelham Walmsley, Dr. Stoddard Walker, Mr. Beerbohm Tree, Mr. Kenneth Campbell, and Dr. Gorham. Mr. J. L. Toole, among others, sent a wreath.

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Southend Telegraph and Leigh and Shoeburyness Recorder (15 June, 1901)

BURIAL OF ROBERT BUCHANAN.
_____

     On a cold, blustering day, with sunshine and cloud in quick succession, the remains of Mr. Robert Buchanan were laid to rest beside those of his dearly-loved wife, in St. John’s Churchyard, and near by the “Great River” which he so much loved. The place is full at the present time with the graves of prominent local people, who have presided over the destinies of the town during the past fifty years, but on Friday the little graveyard received the dust of a more eminent than they — within it now lies buried one at whose shrine the litterateur of many future generations will do homage. Formerly, when Mrs. Buchanan was buried, the quiet nook in the north-east corner, o’er-hung with trees, must have made a pretty picture, but the growth of the town has left its mark even here. Below the sepulchre stretches a meadow upon which buildings have already been erected and which has been made ready for further additions, whilst huddling round the grave itself, with little order or regularity, lie the remains of many of the now almost forgotten dead; whose time-worn monuments lend a dreary and depressing effect.
     The last, sad ceremony was simplicity itself. The funeral service in the church and at the graveside were soon over. Crowded in the small compass were a large number of people, attracted by the importance of the event, and the mourners having filed through after a last long look, the crowd flocked to the grave and for some time there was an endless passage to and fro of feet, heedless of the already buried.

_____

AT LIVERPOOL STREET.

     “The Star” said on Friday: A small group of casual spectators standing at the gates of No. 6 platform at Liverpool Street Station this morning divided for the passage of a railway funeral trolley, decked with a few simple wreaths. Here and there a man’s head was respectfully bared, and one or two more curious than the rest inquired the name of the dead.
     “Robert Buchanan!” explained a burly gentleman.
     A score of manacled soldiers marched into the station, under the charge of a grizzled sergeant, and three boy corporals. The rigors of a military gaol confronted them.
     Not for a moment was the busy life of the station stayed; hundreds and thousands went hurrying by, unaware that a strenuous fighter in the cause of humanity was being taken to his last home.

_____

ARRIVAL OF THE BODY AND MOURNERS.

     No special preparations had been made at the Great Eastern Railway Station for the reception of the body which was carried across London, from Streatham, to Liverpool Street, in a Washington car, accompanied by the mourners. Only two carriages and a car were waiting and but few people were standing about. On drawing up at the platform the only thing noticeable was a body of city gentlemen who had seemingly forgotten their usual hurry and were leisurely waiting, as if for once they did not want to be first away. Mr. J. W. Brett, of London, was the undertaker in charge and, assisted by Mr. W. T. Darke, of Alexandra Street, Southend, the disposal of the coffin, with its burden of flowers, was carried out easily and well. The procession, small in number, grew on its way to the Church to respectable dimensions.

_____

THE INTERMENT.

     A crowd, unrepresentative, however, of the borough, waited at the church gates for the body and the bell was tolled as the short cortege wended its way down High Street. On arriving at the church gates, the Rev. T. Varney met the body and headed the procession into the church; reading the opening sentences of the Burial Service as the strains of the organ died away. The service was very simple, there being no hymns; but as the coffin was being carried from the Church to the grave, Mr. Taplin, who was at the organ, played the “Dead March” in Saul. The choir stalls and reading desk were draped, and the arrangements in the church were superintended by Messrs. T. J. Sharland and W. Whur, J.P. At the graveside, the Rev. T. Varney read the remainder of the service, and the remains of the novelist were then laid to rest by those of his wife, who died in 1881, and mother, whom he survived seven years.
     The mourners were: Miss Harriet Jay (sister-in-law), Mlle. Irene de Bernardy, Miss Mary Jones, Mrs. Bassett, Dr. Gorham (medical attendant), Dr. Stoddart Walker (nephew of John Stuart Blackie), Mr. John Ross and Mr. Pelham Womersley. Amongst those who assembled round the grave were: Messrs. Coulson Kernahan, Henry Murray, Shelton (late stage manager for Mr. Beerbohm Tree), Alec. Wetherley (son of the well-known song writer), Councillor R. A. Jones, Messrs. Payn, T. J. Sharland, etc. Mr. J. L. Toole was unable to be present and sent a telegram “Too ill to come, but would have loved to be there;” and Mr. A. W. Pinero and Mr. George R. Sims were prevented by reason of other engagements.
     The coffin was of polished oak, with massive brass fittings; the inscription on the brass plate being “Robert Buchanan, born 18th August, 1841, died 10th June, 1901.”
     Wreaths were sent by: “With sincere sympathy and regret, J. L. Toole”; “In affectionate remembrance and sincere admiration, Mr. C. F. and Florence Baldwin, with deepest sympathy and love”; “A last token of respect and love to dear Robert, Mlle. Irene de Bernardy, 19, Portland Road, Holland Park Avenue, W.”; “One soul less on earth, one angel more in heaven. In loving memory of our dear uncle, from Pelham, Lily and Roddie”; “With deep sorrow and sympathy, John Garrett Morten, Ivy Hall, Richmond, Surrey”; “In memoriam, Robert Buchanan. Thy tired brain has whiled away, for others many a weary day; thy life is rounded now by rest, of all earth gives the last and best. Amy A. Hopper, 14th June, 1901. Southend-on- Sea”; Miss Jay, Mr. F. Noel, Mr. John Ross, Mr. Stoddart Walker, Mrs. John Stuart Blackie, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Slaughter, Mr. Fred Stanley (Adelphi Theatre), Miss Alice McAnnaly, and Miss M. A. Victor.

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The Scotsman (29 June, 1901 - p.9)

     In October last, when Robert Buchanan was suddenly stricken down by a paralysis from which he never recovered, his personal friends and admirers subscribed a fund for his relief. It served an admirable purpose by soothing and, as far as possible, making comfortable the last hours of the novelist. The end came so quickly that the money was not fully expended. After paying all expenses, including the cost of the funeral, there remains a balance of over £150. It is intended, in pursuance of what is recognised as comfortable with Buchanan’s wishes in the matter, that this shall be handed over to his adopted daughter, Miss Harriett Jay, who nursed him through his long illness.

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The New York Times (13 July, 1901)

     Certain London papers which gave more or less sympathetic accounts of the funeral of the late Robert Buchanan, printed elsewhere in obscure places the following pathetic legend:
     At the London Bankruptcy Court yesterday a receiving order was made against the estate of the late Robert Buchanan.

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The New York Times (10 August, 1901)

Mrs. Sherwood Writes of Olive Schreiner, George Moore, and Others.

     AIX LES BAINS, July 27.—
.....

     The funeral of Robert Buchanan, which occurred lately with those agnostic rites which he requested, roused much speculation as to his real belief or unbelief. Mr. Herbert Murray insisted that had Robert Buchanan lived much longer he would have become an atheist, and his admirers say that he regarded Christ as “a-theos,” that is to say “apart from God,” but, his admirers say, “God he loved, the humanity of Christ he loved. Immortality he was certain of.” His last words were: “I do believe in God supreme and chief of all things first and last, whose works proclaim His glory and the glory of His name.” When such a man once had cast away “the crust of creeds” he could not be called an unbeliever nor a-theos, and we who love his poetry may well say with one of his admirers: “That in his love of God he became ‘God intoxicated,’ he ended with the belief that behind the dark portal God abides.”

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