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ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841-1901)

ROBERT BUCHANAN TIMELINE

1: 1840 - 1870

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1840 - 1860

Autumn 1840

Robert Buchanan marries Margaret Williams at a civil ceremony in Manchester, attended by Robert Owen.

18 August 1841

Robert Buchanan born in Caverswall, Staffordshire.

[click here for copy of birth certificate]

23 August 1841

Robert Buchanan Snr. and Rev. J. R. Stephens discuss “the truth and practicability of Socialism” at a public meeting held at the Hall of Science in Manchester.

The meeting was reported in The Northern Star and Leeds General Advertiser on 28th August, 1841. Although the quality of the scan is not too good, I thought it worthwhile to add it to the site since it does give a good idea of what Robert Buchanan Snr., ‘Social Missionary’, was doing around the time of his son’s birth.

January 1842

A serious physical assault on Robert Snr. at a Methodist chapel in Whitehaven, Cumberland, brings his missionary career to a close. He moves to London to work as a reporter on the Sun newspaper.

Information from Robert Snr.’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

c. 1842

Margaret and her son join the Ham Common community, in Surrey.

They do not stay long and the family eventually settle in Norwood, in the London borough of Lambeth. Buchanan attends Alexander Campbell’s school in Hampton Wick, then one at Merton. Their house in Norwood is visited by prominent Socialists including Louis Blanc, Marc Caussidière and Lloyd Jones.

1844

Mary Ann Jay born in Grays, Essex.

1850

Robert Snr. returns to Scotland to edit the Glasgow Sentinel.

30 March 1851

According to the 1851 census Margaret Buchanan (34) and Robert Buchanan (9) are still living in Gothic Cottage, Norwood. Margaret Buchanan is listed as ‘wife of newspaper proprietor’ indicating that Robert Snr. had by now bought the Glasgow Sentinel.

[click here for copy of 1851 census]

The census return for the family of Richard Jay is also available here.

c. 1851

Margaret Buchanan joins her husband in Glasgow and Robert is sent to boarding-school at Rothesay, on the Island of Bute. He begins writing poetry.

c. 1853

After trying to run away from the school he is expelled and returns home to Glasgow to continue his education at the Glasgow Academy and then the High School. Robert Snr. is now the proprietor of three newspapers, the Glasgow Sentinel, the Glasgow Times and the Penny Post.

2 September 1853

Harriett Jay born in Grays, Essex.

[click here for copy of birth certificate]

c. 1855

First works printed (anonymously) in a Glasgow newspaper “one, moreover, which did not belong to his father.” (Jay)

Hugh Macdonald (who worked for Buchanan Snr.) encourages Robert’s literary ambitions, buying his first long poem and printing it in the Glasgow Times.

18 August 1855

Robert Snr. gives his son the one-volume edition of Wordsworth, published by Moxon, as a present on his fourteenth birthday.

c. December 1855

Writes a pantomime which is produced at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow.

Jay, Chapter XXIII.

1856

Attends Glasgow University.

First becomes interested in the theatre. Impressed by Vandenhoff’s performance of King Lear. Meets Henry Irving. Spends time at the Theatre Royal Glasgow.

Meets David Gray at a cricket match on Glasgow Green. They become friends and send letters seeking advice and help from British literary notables. Buchanan writes to G. H. Lewes.

The current edition of the D.N.B. states that Buchanan “enrolled in Greek and Latin classes at Glasgow University in 1856” whereas the 1912 edition has “In 1857–8 he completed his education by joining the junior classes of Greek and Latin at Glasgow University.”

November, 1856

Robert Buchanan Snr. in financial difficulties.

Both the D.N.B. and John A. Cassidy’s Robert W. Buchanan state that Robert Snr. was made bankrupt in 1856. However, according to newspaper accounts of his 1860 bankruptcy, he seems to have come to an agreement with his creditors in 1856 and continued in business.

18 August 1857

Robert Buchanan’s 16th birthday.

December 1857

Poems & Love Lyrics, Buchanan’s first book of poetry, published. (Glasgow: Thomas Murray and Son. Edinburgh: Sutherland and Knox. London: Hall, Virtue and Co.)
Reviewed by Gerald Massey in the Athenaeum, December 26, 1857.

c. 1858

Buchanan Snr. starts the Leeds Express with Lloyd Jones. The paper fails after 12 months leaving Buchanan with debts of £1700.

The Buchanan family are living at 9 Oakfield Terrace, Hillhead, Glasgow at this period.

This ties in with Harriett Jay’s account of Buchanan Snr.’s financial activities: “For years fortune favoured him, and everything he touched succeeded. It was not until he was tempted to extend his ventures beyond the locality where he resided that the tide of his fortunes seems to have turned. He became involved in serious liabilities and finally failed to meet his responsibilities.” 

February 1859

Mary, and other Poems, second book of poetry published in Glasgow. The book is dedicated to Hugh Macdonald.
The review in The Spectator (February 5, 1859) concluded:
“As a first production there would have been promise in his book. As a second designed to fulfil the expectations of a hopeful first, it is rather a failure.”

Late 1859

Buchanan becomes the editor of The West of Scotland Magazine and Review.

An undated letter from the Oakfield Terrace address written to Le Chevalier de Chatelain discusses a proposed article for the magazine.
The letter also mentions a translation into French of one of Buchanan’s poems published in Beautés de la Poësie Anglaise Vol. I by Le Chevalier de Chatelain.

1860

February 1860

Writes to Thackeray submitting two poems to the new Cornhill Magazine (edited by Thackeray), which were rejected.

David Gray goes to London. Sends letter to Monckton Milnes from 65, Deveril Street, Borough (Southwark).

This letter from Gray, dated “Feb. 1860”, printed in The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton by T. Wemyss Reid (Cassell & Co., Ltd., 1890, Vol. II, p. 46), sheds some doubt on Buchanan’s account of their joint flight to London (albeit by different trains). It could, of course, be a printing error. In the ‘Memoir’ by James Hedderwick, in the introduction to The Luggie, published in 1862, the date given for Gray’s arrival in London is 5th May, 1860, which is taken from “a brief note to his parents”. This is the date which Buchanan gives in ‘The Story of David Gray’(first published in the Cornhill Magazine in February 1864). Another source of confusion is the differing tales of Richard Monckton Milnes’ first meeting with Gray - in his brief ‘Introductory Notice’ in The Luggie, Gray turns up on his doorstep, whereas in Reid’s description of events, he goes to visit Gray at his lodgings.

March 1860

The March edition of The West of Scotland Magazine and Review includes an article about Victor Hugo written by Le Chevalier de Chatelain.

April 1860

Bankruptcy proceedings started against Robert Buchanan Snr.

5 May 1860

Robert Buchanan leaves Glasgow for London.

He loses his train ticket and his luggage is confiscated. He meets a lad in a park who invites him back to his lodging house where he spends his first night in London.

This is the date given for David Gray’s journey to London in James Hedderwick’s ‘Memoir’, in The Luggie (published 1862) and Buchanan gives the same date in ‘The Story of David Gray’ (published 1864). Apart from the date of Gray’s death and those attached to letters quoted in ‘The Story of David Gray’, this is one of only two dates specified by Buchanan. The other is of their meeting on 3rd May when they discuss going to London. Buchanan then writes:
“On parting, we arranged to meet on the evening of the 5th of May, in time to catch the five o’clock train.”
Which seems very close to the Hedderwick’s version:
“In a brief note to his parents, dated Glasgow, 5th May, 1860, he says, ‘I start off to-night at 5 o’clock by the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway, right on to London, in good health and spirits.’”

6 May 1860

He looks up an old friend of his father’s, Mr. Merriman who helps him retrieve his luggage and invites him to stay at his house in Euston Road.

May 1860. . .

He stays with the Merriman family for a week or so, then moves to the garret at 66, Stamford Street, Blackfriars.

Visits Bryan Procter (Barry Cornwall), with whom he had corresponded while in Scotland, and who had “warned him not to attempt to live by literature”. Procter slips him three sovereigns as he leaves.

9 June 1860

Buchanan Snr. in the Glasgow Bankruptcy Court. The examination is reported at length in the Glasgow Herald. The case is adjourned until 20th June.

The newspaper reports of Buchanan Snr.’s bankruptcy give an insight into his fairly dubious business practices. Another interesting fact is that Mrs. Ann Williams, his mother-in-law, lives with them. Although she is never mentioned in the Jay biography, she appears on both the 1861 census return for Buchanan Snr. and the 1871 census for Robert Buchanan, indicating that after his father’s death, both his mother and his grandmother joined his household.

20 June 1860

Buchanan Snr.’s bankruptcy hearing resumes.

14 July 1860

First pieces published in the Athenaeum.

There is an undated letter to Hepworth Dixon, editor of the Athenaeum, written by Buchanan on his arrival in London, asking for work.

31 July 1860

Sale of Buchanan Snr.’s assets (copyrights of the Glasgow Sentinel, Glasgow Times, and the Penny Post newspapers, printing plant and job printing business) for £1400 at the Crow Hotel, Glasgow. No buyers.

c. 1860. . .

Also writes for the Literary Gazette and Dickens’ All The Year Round and John Maxwell’s Temple Bar and the St. James’s Magazine. He also contributes a weekly leader on current politics to a newspaper in Ayr.

He also makes several acquaintances in the literary and theatrical world, including Edwin Danvers, the actor, and Westland Marston, the playwright. At Marston’s house he meets Dinah Mulock (Mrs. Craik), author of John Halifax, Gentleman and a fellow native of Staffordshire. She makes her library available to him. Also at Marston’s house meets Hermann Vezin (with whom he collaborated on Partners in 1884) and W. G. Wills (who provides a letter of introduction to Edmund Yates).

Meets up with David Gray in London. Invites him to stay at 66 Stamford Street. David Gray’s illness diagnosed.

This is perhaps the most confusing period of Buchanan’s life. Unlike the childhood and teenage years where the information is sparse, this period of Buchanan’s early struggles in London contains a lot of detail but little of it is dated by Jay. Buchanan also wrote of this period several times but without helping matters. Chapter 8 of Jay ‘Friendships, 1864’ opens with:“With the death of David Gray his loneliness in the Great City became complete; almost his only acquaintances being Hepworth Dixon of the Athenæum, and other editors for whom he did a little work.” According to Jay, Marston’s daughter Nellie “interested the poet exceedingly”, which, considering the next chapter starts, “It was towards the close of the year 1861 that he married my sister”, would suggest that the visits to Marston’s house preceded the death of Gray in December 1861. Buchanan’s ‘My First Book’ article which seem to be the source for this period in Jay, indicates this is the period after Gray’s first return to Scotland in October 1860.

October 1860

David Gray returns to Scotland

Letter in Jay from Gray in Scotland dated 10th November 1860. A letter in The Life, Letters, and Friendships of Richard Monckton Milnes, First Lord Houghton by T. Wemyss Reid (Vol. II, p. 49) from ‘an eminent Glasgow physician who had been consulted by Gray’ is dated 4th November and the doctor writes: “At the request of my friend Mr. Sydney Dobell, I visited poor Gray some days ago at his father’s cottage, Merkland...”

9 October 1860

Second attempt to sell Buchanan Snr.’s assets, this time for £1250, at the Crow Hotel, Glasgow. No buyers.

November 1860

Calls on Edmund Yates assistant editor of Maxwell’s new magazine, Temple Bar, with a letter of introduction from W. G. Wills.

Gray returns from Scotland and stays at Stamford Street while waiting for a place in a hospital in Torquay.

“He wrote a series of poems in our new magazine, the first one having ‘Temple Bar’ for its subject, and became a constant contributor.” (Edmund Yates : his recollections and experiences (1885)). Buchanan later falls out with Yates over his article, ‘A New Thing in Journalism’ (1877).

December 1860

‘Temple Bar’ (the first in a series of ‘London Poems’) is published in the first number of Temple Bar.

‘The Country Curate’s Story’ (a poem) is published in the Christmas edition of the Welcome Guest, as part of a linked series of tales, under the title ‘Snowbound’.

There were nine poems in all: ‘Temple Bar’, ‘The Dead’, ‘Outcasts’, ‘The Destitute’, ‘Belgravia’, ‘A City Preacher’, ‘The River’. ‘Christmas in the City’ and ‘Haunted London’. The last appeared in the February 1862 edition of Temple Bar. None of the poems were included in London Poems or any subsequent collections.

5 December 1860

Gray moves to a hydropathic establishment at Sudbrook Park, Richmond

Letter in Reid from Gray to Monckton Milnes.

22 December 1860

Gray leaves Sudbrook Park and moves back to 66 Stamford Street while waiting to go to Torquay.

Letter in Reid from Gray to Monckton Milnes.

1861

January 1861

Gray in the hospital at Torquay but does not stay long and returns to Stamford Street for a brief time before returning home to Scotland.

‘The Dead’ (the second in a series of ‘London Poems’) and  ‘Robert Herrick, Poet and Divine’ published in the second  number of Temple Bar.

Letter in Jay from Gray in Torquay to his parents dated Jan 6th 1861.

The essay on Herrick was the first in a series, Richard Corbet followed in May, George Herbert in July, and John Donne in August.

February 1861

John Maxwell makes him editor of the Welcome Guest.

Charles Gibbon, whom Buchanan met at Herne Bay, is now sharing the garret at 66, Stamford Street. They collaborate on an adaptation of Michael Banim’s Crohoore of the Billhook, retitled, The Rathboys.

“A little after this period he [John Maxwell] gave me the editorship of one of his publications, the moribund Welcome Guest, and it was while I was editing this publication that he sent to me the lady whom he afterwards married, Miss M. E. Braddon. I ran her first story through the Guest and about the same time reviewed in the Athenæum, at Maxwell’s request, her first and only volume of verse.” Buchanan’s review of Braddon’s ‘Garibaldi; and other Poems’ was published in the Athenæum on February 23, 1861.

If there is any truth in Buchanan’s story about setting out to kill a publisher, then Gibbon’s arrival at Stamford Street must predate Maxwell’s (the publisher in question) offer of the editorship of Welcome Guest.

April 1861

Buchanan visits Gray in Scotland.

The 1861 census was taken on the night of 7th April 1861. I have been unable to find a listing for Robert Buchanan. Checking the returns for Scotland I came across Robert Snr. in Glasgow (whose household also includes his mother-in-law) and David Gray at ‘Merkland’, but neither lists Buchanan. Mary Ann Jay is coincidentally also missing from the Richard Jay household and I have been unable to find her elsewhere. Richard Jay, listed as a labourer on Harriett Jay’s birth certificate is now a Foreman at the Grays Chalk Pit. Although these documents are peripheral to the subject of the timeline, they are available on the documents page.

1861 census returns:

Richard Jay.

Robert Buchanan Snr.

David Gray.

c. July 1861

Robert Buchanan Snr. and his wife move down to London. They live in lodgings in Euston Road. Buchanan Snr. working as a journalist and writing cheap fiction.

2 September 1861

Robert Buchanan marries Mary Ann Jay.

This is the date given in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, although I have not come across any record of the marriage myself. Harriett Jay gives no date, just: “towards the close of the year 1861”. It is strange that Harriett Jay deals with Buchanan’s marriage to her sister so briefly. There are no details of how and where they met. Perhaps this is due to her later attempts to conceal her real age. In September 1861, Buchanan would have been 20, his wife, 16 or 17, and Harriett, 8.

December 1861

‘A Heart Struggle. A Tale in Two Parts, Part I’ published in Temple Bar.

Stormbeaten:  or Christmas Eve at the “Old Anchor” Inn. A collection of poems and short stories, written in collaboration with Charles Gibbon, published by Ward Lock & Co.
The introduction to the book is dated December 1861 and signed, “Williams Buchanan”.
The book is mentioned in the Daily News of 9th December as a forthcoming title for the Christmas market.

3 December 1861

Death of David Gray.

10 December 1861

Writes to David Gray’s father in reply to a letter informing him of David’s death. In the letter (with the address: 66 Upper Stamford St., Waterloo Rd.) Buchanan writes:
“I am too poor now to come at once to Scotland. A thousand family annoyances, poverty & old debt, have reduced my means to a very low ebb indeed. For the last six months, I have had six people besides myself to support, & the strain has been a severe one.”

Although Buchanan could be exaggerating the figure, the six people he was supporting would include his wife, his mother and father, and presumably his grandmother. The other two could be Charles Gibbon and Harriett Jay, although I believe she was a later addition to the household.

1862

1862

Buchanan visits G. H. Lewes and George Eliot. He had previously corresponded with Lewes before coming to London.

At some point (according to Jay) Buchanan’s parents move to a small house in Kentish Town and Robert Buchanan and Charles Gibbon move in with them.

Jay gives the year as 1862. Buchanan also gives two accounts of his friendship with Lewes (in Jay and ‘My First Book’) where he mentions Lewes urging him to write the memoir of David Gray (published in February 1864 in the Cornhill Magazine) and arranging a publisher, Smith and Elder (later rejected in favour of Alexander Strahan) for Idyls and Legends of Inverburn.

January 1862

‘A Heart Struggle. A Tale in Two Parts, Part II’ published in Temple Bar.

February 1862

Takes lodgings at Chertsey in order to visit Thomas Love Peacock at Lower Halliford.

In Buchanan’s ‘Thomas Love Peacock: A Personal Reminiscence’ (New Quarterly Magazine, iv (April 1875) pp. 238-55) he writes “Mainly with the wish to be near him, I retreated to quiet Chertsey; and thence past Chertsey Bridge, through miles of green fields basking in the summer sun, and through delightful lanes to Lower Halliford.” And in Jay: “He was living at Lower Halliford, on the Thames, and in order to be near him I took lodgings at Chertsey, only sleeping occasionally under his hospitable roof. It was rest and inspiration indeed to pass from the roar of Grub Street and the strident Sixties into the peaceful atmosphere of the brave old pagan’s dwelling, to drink May Rosewell’s cowslip wine, and to boat on the quiet river with Clara Leigh Hunt, a bright-eyed little maid of fifteen and Peacock’s special pet. It was under Peacock’s influence that I wrote many of my pseudo-classic poems, afterwards gathered together in my first volume, ‘Undertones.’”

Although Buchanan places his time in Chertsey in the summer, the letter to David Gray Snr., dated 12th February 1862, has the address: “Chertsey, Surrey”. Also, Buchanan mentions that the letter has been forwarded to him, which would indicate that he is living in Chertsey, rather than just there on a quick visit.

12 February 1862

Writes to David Gray Snr. saying he has been “exceedingly ill, suffering from congestion of the lungs, but am now a great deal better.” He also says that he has been unable to get some poems of David Gray’s published and that he intends to come to Glasgow within the month to deliver a lecture called “The Story of the Lives of Three Glasgow Cronies” (David Gray, James Macfarlan and Buchanan himself).

The address on the letter is “Chertsey, Surrey”.

I’ve not found any evidence that Buchanan went to Glasgow in 1862 to deliver his lecture.

March 1862

‘Lady Letitia’s Lilliput Hand, Part I’ published in Temple Bar.

The poem, ‘Sir Tristem’, is published in Once A Week under the name, “Williams Buchanan”.

April 1862

‘Lady Letitia’s Lilliput Hand, Part II’ published in Temple Bar.

May 1862

David Gray’s The Luggie, and other poems published by Macmillan and Co. It contains a ‘Memoir’ by James Hedderwick and a ‘Prefatory Notice’ by Richard Monckton Milnes.
Reviewed (by John Westland Marston) in the Athenæum on 24th May, 1862.

17 May 1862

The Rathboys; or Erin’s Fair Daughter, written by Buchanan and Gibbon, is produced at the Standard Theatre London.

June 1862

The poem, ‘Baby Grace’ is published in The St. James's Magazine. It is reviewed favourably in several newspapers - The Standard declares that “If Mr. Buchanan had never written anything else ‘Baby Grace’ would stamp him as a poet of no common order.” The poem is also reprinted in various provincial papers.

10 June 1862

Writes to David Gray Snr. enclosing a review of The Luggie from The London Review. He also writes:
“Tell me what you think of my plan to write a long loving memoir of David, and to include in the volume his remains. His genius can never be truthfully represented unless by one who knew him as well as I; and to me it would be indeed a labour of love.”
The address on the letter is “8 Wellington Rd. West,  Haverstock Hill.”

The date of this letter to Gray’s father, coming soon after the publication of The Luggie, could indicate that the inspiration for Buchanan’s account of the life of David Gray was the ‘Memoir’ by James Hedderwick, which contains only two passing mentions of Buchanan.

18 June 1862

For one night only, Buchanan and Gibbons appear in The Rathboys at the Standard Theatre. Gibbons plays Maurice, and Buchanan plays Shadragh the Shingawn.

21 June 1862

The poem, ‘Wife and I’, is published in Once A Week under the name, “R. Williams Buchanan”.

27 June 1862

Final performance of The Rathboys; or Erin’s Fair Daughter at the Standard Theatre London.

19 July 1862

The poem, ‘Maid Avoraine’ published in Once A Week.

August 1862

‘Society’s Looking-Glass’, an essay, is published in Temple Bar.

1863

December 1863

Undertones published by E. Moxon.
Reviewed in the Athenaeum by William Hepworth Dixon, December 19, 1863.

Undertones is dedicated to Westland Marston. The book also has a poem to David Gray (‘To David in Heaven’) as a prologue and one to Buchanan’s wife (‘To Mary on Earth’) as an epilogue.

Late 1863

William Black, a friend from Glasgow came to London “at the end of 1863” and took lodgings in the same house as Buchanan at 9, Granby Street, Camden.

William Black, novelist by Wemyss Reid (Cassell & Co., 1902).

The letter to David Gray’s father written on 10th June, 1862 has a Haverstock Hill address, which is situated in the borough of Camden, and two letters (offered for sale by David Holmes Autographs) also place Buchanan in the Camden area around this time. A letter of 9th February 1864 to J.A. Langford, the Birmingham antiquary and journalist, gives Buchanan’s address as Grove Cottage, Haverstock Grove. Another letter from the same seller to William Hepworth Dixon has a similar address (102 Prince of Wales Road, Haverstock Hill, N.W.) and although the date is ‘unclear’ it could refer to Dixon’s review of Undertones in the Athenaeum.

1864

1864

Buchanan goes to Denmark, accompanied by his father, to report on the Second Schleswig-Holstein War (which lasted from February to October 1864) for the Morning Star.

Buchanan meets Hans Christian Andersen.

Mary Jay stays with her mother-in-law in Shepherd’s Bush.

Jay quotes the Pearson’s Weekly article, which says that he went ‘towards the end of the war’. Although the peace treaty was not signed until October 30th, the final battle of the war was the Battle of Lundby which was fought on the 3rd July.

February 1864

‘The Story of David Gray’ published in the Cornhill Magazine.

9 February 1864

Writes to J.A. Langford, the Birmingham antiquary and journalist: “Pray do not put yourself to any inconvenience concerning the Lecture. I have by no means decided to read in Birmingham, tho’ I thought such a contingency was possible.”

I’ve found no evidence of Buchanan giving any lectures or readings apart from those in December 1868, and January and March 1869.

July 1864

The Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts awards its silver medal to Mr. Robert Buchanan, for Undertones.
Reported in the Birmingham Daily Post (1 August, 1864).

8 October 1864

Buchanan’s second play, and his first solo dramatic effort, The Witchfinder opens at the Sadlers’ Wells Theatre, London.

22 October 1864

Final performance of The Witchfinder at the Sadlers’ Wells Theatre.

16 November 1864

First letter to Robert Browning (referring to their meeting at G.H. Lewes’ house), asking him to contribute to Memorials of David Gray. In order to give financial help to the family of David Gray, Buchanan was proposing to publish a book featuring contributions from the leading writers of the day.

Buchanan also writes a similar letter to Tennyson on the same day.

Buchanan’s address is given as: Woodlands Cottage, Iver, Uxbridge.

3 December 1864

Letter to Browning saying the Memorials of David Gray has been abandoned. “All seemed well, when one or two objections were raised on the score of propriety; and it was even suggested that ‘it looked like begging for the father on the strength of Gray’s reputation.’” (Jay)

10 December 1864

According to The London Review:
“Addresses have been delivered by Mrs. Hermann Vezin at Drury Lane this week between the farce and the tragedy, and sold in the house in aid of the “People’s Shakespeare Monument Fund.” The writer of the addresses are Mr. Buchanan (the author of “Undertones”), Mr. J. A. Heraud, Mr. Friswell, and others.”

1865

21 March 1865

Notice in the Guardian:
     “Mr. Strahan will soon publish a volume called “Poems of Ploverdale,” by Mr. Robert Buchanan. The same publisher has also in the press a drama on “Judas Iscariot.”

2 May 1865

Letter to Browning soliciting his opinion of Idyls and Legends of Inverburn. The address on the letter indicates that Buchanan has now moved to Bexhill.

The address on the letter to Browning is “Belle Hill, Bexhill,  near Hastings”. Jay gives the following explanation for the move: “Just before the publication of “Idyls and Legends of Inverburn” the state of my sister’s health became such as to make it quite clear that a permanent residence in London was not to be thought of, so the young couple removed to the (then) little village of Bexhill, and settled down for a time in a quaint gabled house built of red brick and surrounded with wonderful stretches of garden ground and orchard.”

May 1865

Idyls and Legends of Inverburn published by Alexander Strahan.
Reviewed in the Athenaeum by John Westland Marston, May 13, 1865.

Death of David Gray’s father.

2 May 1865

Writes to Professor John Stuart Blackie, asking his opinion of Idyls and Legends of Inverburn.

16 May 1865

Notice in the Guardian:
     “Messrs. Strahan will shortly put forward a new venture, termed the “Argosy,” to be freighted with the produce of the brains of Mr. Charles Reade, Miss Dinah Mulock, and others. Mr. Robert Buchanan will be the Orpheus of this bold band.”

6 June 1865

First letter to Roden Noel and the start of a long friendship.

Other friends mentioned by Jay at this time are Mr. Gentles and the painter, Walter MacLaren.

30 June 1865

G. H. Lewes, editor of The Fortnightly Review, writes a 16 page review of Idyls and Legends of Inverburn in which he declares:
“Robert Buchanan seems to me a man of genius.”

August 1865

Second edition of Undertones (“enlarged and revised”) published by Alexander Strahan.
Reviewed in the Athenaeum by William Hepworth Dixon, August 19, 1865.

December 1865

First issue of The Argosy includes ‘Verner Ravn: A Dramatic Sketch’ and ‘Hermioné’ by Buchanan.

Winter 1865

Spends the winter in Etrétat, Normandy.

1866

January 1866

‘Wintering at Etrétat. Part I’ published (under the pseudonym, ‘John Banks’) in The Argosy. The issue also includes the poem, ‘Artist and Model’.

February 1866

Returns to Bexhill.

Robert Snr. seriously ill in London. He is moved to Bexhill, accompanied by his wife.

Jay, as ever, is not helpful with dates. She states that they returned “in the spring of 1866” but considering the date of Robert Snr.’s death it is likely they returned some time in February. A letter to William Cox Bennett (offered for sale by David Holmes Autographs) is dated 19th January 1866 and bears the address, “Etretat, Seine Inferieure, France”.

15 February 1866

‘Nell’ (under the title “A London Poem”) is published in The Fortnightly Review.

March 1866

‘Wintering at Etrétat. Part II’ published in Argosy.

4 March 1866

Death of Robert Buchanan Snr.

Margaret Williams Buchanan continues to live with her son for the rest of her life.

April 1866

Poems published by Roberts Brothers of Boston. Buchanan’s first ‘collection’ it includes Undertones and Idyls and Legends of Inverburn, plus two selections from London Poems.

The short story, ‘A Roman Supper’ and the poem, ‘In London, March 1866’ are published in The Argosy.

16 April 1866

Writes to the Brothers Dalziel about Wayside Posies for which he is to receive £150.

May 1866

‘A Morning in Copenhagen’ (‘by an Idle Voyager’) and the poem, ‘The Bachelor Dreams’ published in The Argosy.

23 June 1866

In a letter to the Brothers Dalziel, Buchanan discusses a proposed guide-book for Scotland.

Although the Brothers Dalziel do not take up Buchanan’s suggestion for a Scottish guide-book, he does produce something similar in The Land of Lorne published by Chapman and Hall in 1871.

July 1866

London Poems published by Alexander Strahan.
Reviewed in the Athenaeum by William Hepworth Dixon, July 21, 1866.

London Poems is dedicated to William Hepworth Dixon.

August

‘Etrétat in the Bathing Season’ (under the pseudonym, ‘John Banks’) published in The Argosy.

4 August 1866

Buchanan’s review of Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads appears in the Athenaeum.

September 1866

‘A London Lyric’ (aka ‘The Northern Muse’) published in The Argosy.

15 September 1866

‘The Session of the Poets’, a satirical poem, ridiculing Swinburne in particular, published in The Spectator.
‘Immorality in Authorship’ published in The Fortnightly Review.

October 1866

Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads. A Criticism by William Michael Rossetti published. It opens with the following statement:
“The advent of a new great poet is sure to cause a commotion of one kind or another; and it would be hard were this otherwise in times like ours, when the advent of even so poor and pretentious a poetaster as a Robert Buchanan stirs storms in teapots.”

‘Up in an Attic’ (by ‘P.’) published in The Argosy.

November 1866

‘Agnes’ (by R. B.), ‘The Lead-Melting’ (by Robert Buchanan) and ‘Convent-Robbing’ (by Walter Hutcheson) published in The Argosy.

9 November 1866

In a letter to Browning, Buchanan writes:
“I hate Goethe, everything Goethesque; and either you agree with me, or I see Goethe & Goetheism wrongly. That Man I believe to be the incarnate Curse of modern times, a horribly perfect Tempter,—the father of unbelief,—the Devil’s last & subtlest disguise to entrap the beautiful & the pure of soul.”

December 1866

Wayside Posies: original poems of the country life edited by Robert Buchanan. An illustrated poetry anthology (engraved by the Brothers Dalziel) published by George Routledge & Sons.
Reviewed in the Athenaeum by Frederick George Stephens, December 22, 1866.

Ballad Stories of the Affections: from the Scandinavian published by George Routledge & Sons, an illustrated edition engraved by the Brothers Dalziel.
Advertised in The Times, December 17, 1866. Reviewed in The Daily News. January 15, 1867, and in the Athenaeum, by Frederick George Stephens, February 23, 1867.

‘Stockholm and the Scandinavian Exhibition’ (‘by an Idle Voyager’) published in The Argosy.

1867

27 April 1867

Frederick Startridge Ellis, a publisher and bookseller, to whom Buchanan owed money, writes to Buchanan telling him he has “placed the matter in the hands of my solicitors”.

A letter to the Dalziel Brothers dated Friday 29th, (no month or year) indicates that Buchanan was in financial difficulties and it is probable that it was written on 29th March 1867.

22 May 1867

Writes to the Dalziel Brothers asking them to pay the bill from Ellis’s lawyer.

28 June 1867

Writes to Benjamin Webster Jnr. enclosing “some lines to Miss [Kate] Terry”. He also mentions writing to Benjamin Webster Snr. “some weeks ago on business, & have received no reply of any kind.”

Benjamin Webster Snr. was the manager of the Adelphi Theatre and this mention of ‘business’ could indicate that Buchanan was also writing plays at this time.

15 August 1867

‘Charmian’ published in the first edition of The Broadway magazine.

October 1867

North Coast, and other Poems published by George Routledge & Sons, an illustrated edition engraved by the Brothers Dalziel.
Reviewed in the Athenaeum by William Hepworth Dixon, October 19, 1867. Reviewed in The Times, December 12, 1867.
Following the success of Ballad Stories of the Affections, Buchanan was offered £400 for North Coast, and other Poems by the Brothers Dalziel.

Swinburne’s essay, ‘Matthew Arnold’s New Poems’, published in The Fortnightly Review. It contains the following passage:
‘The poets that are made by nature are not many; and whatever “vision” an aspirant may possess, he has not the “faculty divine” if he cannot use his vision to any poetic purpose. There is no cant more pernicious to such as these, more wearisome to all other men, than that which asserts the reverse. It is a drug which weakens the feeble and intoxicates the drunken; which makes those swagger who have not learnt to walk, and teach who have not been taught to learn. Such talk as this of Wordsworth’s is the poison of poor souls like David Gray’s.’

In his unpublished autobiography, Latter Day Leaves (quoted in Chapter XVI of Jay) Buchanan cites this as the root cause of his ‘Fleshly School of Poetry’ article published in October 1871:
“To answer that question I must refer to the fons et origo of the whole affair. Not long before its publication Mr. Swinburne the poet had gone out of his way to print, in a note to one of his prose essays, an insulting allusion to the friend of my boyhood, David Gray, whose premature death I still mourned deeply. He spoke contemptuously and cruelly of Gray’s ‘poor little book,’ an allusion emphasised, I was assured, by other spiteful comments of the Coterie to which Mr. Swinburne belonged. ... Whatever motive inspired the allusion, it seemed to me most ill-timed, offensive, and cruel; and I vowed then and there to avenge it if ever I had the opportunity.”
Swinburne’s original essay contained no mention of “Gray’s ‘poor little book,’”, but that phrase was included in a footnote added to the essay when it was republished in  Essays and Studies (London: Chatto & Windus, 1875). John A. Cassidy in his essay, ‘Robert Buchanan and the Fleshly Controversy’, rejects Buchanan’s explanation that Swinburne’s original comment on Gray was the cause of the controversy. However, a footnote to Robert Buchanan’s essay, ‘George Heath, The Moorland Poet’, published in Good Words in March 1871, does indicate otherwise:

“Mr. Algernon Charles Swinburne, author of “Atalanta in Calydon,” went some years ago far out of his way to call David Gray a “dumb poet”—meaning by that a person with great poetical feeling, but no adequate powers of expression. So many excellent critics have resented both this impertinence and the unfeeling language in which it was expressed, that Mr. Swinburne is doubtless ashamed enough of his words by this time; but would it not have been as well if, before vilifying a dead man, he had first read his works, which, if they possess any characteristic whatever, are noticeable for crystalline perfection of poetic form, unparalleled felicity of epithet (witness the one word “sov’reign” as applied to the cry of the cuckoo), and emotion always expressed in simple music? When Mr. Swinburne and the school he follows are consigned to the limbo of affettuosos, David Gray’s dying sonnets will be part of the literature of humanity.”

November 1867

‘Walt Whitman’, Buchanan’s review of Leaves of Grass and Drum Taps, is published in the Broadway Magazine (No. 3).

December 1867

‘The Skein’ published in the Broadway Magazine.
 

8 December 1867

‘The Skein’ reprinted in The New York Times.

1868

1868

Moves back to Scotland.

There is a degree of confusion about when Buchanan actually moved back to Scotland and settled in Oban. Jay offers little help. Chapter XII of the biography is titled, ‘Return To Scotland, 1866’, and contains the following:
‘After his father’s death he found himself unable to settle down comfortably in Bexhill, so as soon as his book [London Poems] was fairly launched, and its success assured, he set his face northward, and after pausing here and there in his flight he finally went to Oban, and settled down in what was afterwards known as “The White House on the Hill.”’
The letter to Benjamin Webster Jr. (mentioned above) is dated 28th June, 1867 and the address is Bexhill. In December 1868 Buchanan writes two letters to Browning from Gourock in Scotland., where he seems to have settled for a time before moving to Oban (a letter to Roden Noel from 3rd June 1869 also has a Gourock address).

January 1868

‘London Lyrics: The Politician’ (the first in a series of ‘London Lyrics’) published in London Society.

There were seven ‘London Lyrics’ in all, the last appearing in the March 1869 edition of London Society. ‘The Politician’, ‘To the Moon’, ‘Spring Song in the City’ and ‘The City Asleep’ were included in the ‘London Poems’ section of the 1884 edition of The Poetical Works,  whereas ‘A Fashionable Love Affair’, ‘A Drawing-Room Ballad’ and ‘The Faces’ were not.

February 1868

David Gray and other Essays, chiefly on poetry published by Sampson Low, Son, and Marston.
Reviewed in the Athenaeum by John Westland Marston, February 15, 1868.

October 1868

Edits The Poetical Works of H. W. Longfellow, published by E. Moxon & Co.
Advertised in Notes and Queries 10 October, 1868.

20 November 1868

Writes to Robert Browning from 23, Bernard Street, Russell Square, asking “may I give you a call between this & Wednesday next? I am only in London for a very short time, & it may be long ere I have another chance of seeing you.”

24 November 1868

Visits Browning.

December 1868

The Life and Adventures of J. J. Audubon. Edited, from materials supplied by his widow, by Robert Buchanan. Published by Sampson Low & Co.
Reviewed in The New York Times December 6, 1868.

10 December 1868

Robert Buchanan gives his first Public Reading in the hall of the Watt Institute, Greenock.
Notice in the Guardian (22/12/1868 - p.7): “The Scotch papers announce that Mr. Robert Buchanan has made a successful first appearance as a reader of his own poems.”

According to Jay, Buchanan tried Public Readings in imitation of Dickens, in order to raise money.

26 December 1868

Reviews the first volume of Robert Browning’s
The Ring and the Book for the Athenaeum.

1869

5 January 1869

Buchanan’s second Public Reading at the Watt Institute, Greenock.

20 January 1869

Writes to Browning from 43 Great Coram St., Russell Square:
“I had hoped to see you before the Reading but am suffering from a severe cold & cant get out. Please dont fail to be there!—And wherever you can, speak a word for the affair, as it is of the highest importance to have a good first attendance.”

21 January 1869

According to a letter from Charles Shea (solicitor) to Frederick Ellis, a writ is issued and given to “Nathan the officer of the Sherif of Middlx for service on the Poet.”

Andrew M. Stauffer’s essay, ‘Another Cause for the “Fleshly School” Controversy: Buchanan Versus Ellis,’ published in the Journal of Pre–Raphaelite Studies (Vol. 11 (2002): 63–67) adds some interesting background details to Buchanan’s first Public Reading. The papers of Ellis and Company, are now held by the UCLA Department of Special Collections.

22 January 1869

A letter from Charles Shea (solicitor) to Frederick Ellis states: “The ‘arrangement’ with ‘his creditors’ is doubtless only a dodge to allow the B to appear on Monday safely.”
It seems that not only had Buchanan not cleared his debts with Frederick Ellis before going to Scotland, he also had other creditors in London, who were using his widely advertised appearance at the Hanover-Square Rooms, to collect.

25 January 1869

Buchanan gives a Public Reading at the Hanover-Square Rooms, London. It was reviewed in the Penny Illustrated Paper (30 January 1869 - Issue 383, p. 71):
     “MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN, the author of “London Poems,” “Undertones,” and other poetical pieces, gave his first London reading at the Hanover-square Rooms on Monday evening. The programme included “Tom Dunstan, or the Politician,” “Attorney Sneak,” “Willie Baird, or the Drummer’s Story,” “Nell,” “The Wake of Tim O’Hara,” and “Widow Mysie, an Idyl of Love and Whisky.” Mr. Robert Buchanan possesses a good voice, which he knows how to modulate happily, and throws considerable feeling into his performance.”

26 January 1869

Following the Public Reading, Charles Shea writes to Frederick Ellis:
“He was not to be found at the address from which he dated his letter to you [23 Newman Street], & he managed so well at the Reading that altho’ a very experienced Writ-server was after him he managed to get into the Hanover Square Rooms & out again without detection, with some sort of disguise the server believes.

27 January 1869

Letter from Charles Shea to Frederick Ellis:
“Our friend the Poet has been served this morning at No 9 Great Coram Street,” ... “Judgment will be due in 8 days & execution in 16 if Def[endan]t does not appear simply to delay us.”

2 February 1869

Writes to Browning from 23 Bernard St., Russell Square:
“Your letter was a delight to me! I was in awful terror lest you might have been shocked & displeased at seeing our “gentle craft” exhibited on the boards. If I pleased you, I dont care a sous for the rest of Europe! But the fact is, I’ve been very unlucky—nothing really illnatured has been said—& some of the reviews are first-rate. So that I hope to make the Readings pay ere long,—“paying” being the one object of importance in this matter.
     I shall hope to call upon you some day soon. Meantime, I am busy making preliminaries for other Readings.”

4 February 1869

Shea writes to Ellis that he had “signed a final judgment” against Buchanan, and that “we shall in 8 days time be in a position to capture the Poet at the very first opportunity.”

15 February 1869

Shea informs Elllis that “The “Poet” has been compelled to pay something at last.”  According to Shea’s figures, Buchanan had to pay 13/15/6, of which Ellis received 12/4/0.

22 February 1869

Writes to Browning from 23 Bernard St., Russell Sq.:
“Is it too much to ask you to come to my second Reading on the 3^rd ? It was too kind of you to pay for yr: Tickets, but I wish you’d let me send you them this time.”

3 March 1869

Second Public Reading at the Hanover-Square Rooms, London.

This was Buchanan’s final Public Reading.

13 March 1869

Reviews Beatrice, and other Poems by Roden Noel for the Athenaeum.

20 March 1869

Reviews the remaining volumes of Robert Browning’s
The Ring and the Book for the Athenaeum.

24 March 1869

Visits Browning, accompanied by his wife. A letter from Browning’s sister, Sarianna, to Annie Egerton Smith fixes the date of Buchanan’s visit. She also mentions that Buchanan is planning to produce a play “some time in May”.

Cassidy, in his Buchanan timeline, states that “Failure of second play, The Witchfinder, causes him to leave playwriting for ten years.” However it does appear that Buchanan was still writing plays although none seem to have been produced until A Madcap Prince in 1874. The letters to Browning in May asking for a loan mention two plays that he is waiting to be paid for.

c. May 1869

The Life and Adventures of J. J. Audubon, edited by Robert Buchanan, after three editions published in London and one in New York, is replaced by a revised edition, published by G. P. Putnam & Son, edited by Audubon’s widow, Lucy Green Bakewell Audubon, with a new introduction by Jas. Grant Wilson. Buchanan’s name is removed from this edition as well as those passages which offended the widow Audubon. This new edition continues to be published until 1901. The Everyman’s Library edition, published by J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. (London) and E. P. Dutton & Co. (New York), in 1912, restores Buchanan’s name.

22 May 1869

Financial difficulties. Writes to Browning asking for a loan of £20. Mentions two plays he expects to be paid for, one for ‘Sullivan’ and the other for ‘Hollingshead’. Also mentions that he needs to  “send off the cash to my people in Scotland at once.”

Browning lends him the money and in a second letter of 26th May Buchanan asks for more time to repay the loan, because “my managers wont pay up for a fortnight.”

26 May 1869

Writes to Browning:
“I grieve to say that my managers wont pay up for a fortnight; and I write this to ask whether you will be personally inconvenienced by waiting that time for the £20 you so generously lent me.”
He goes on to say:
“Unless under dreadful pressure I should never have asked your help; but your kind friendship came just in time—without it, I should have been in a sickening difficulty—my poor women folk miserable & ashamed.This damnable want of pence is the saddest saltest thing I know: it spoils everything—thought, hope, fellowship. My life is a fiery struggle to get money at set periods to meet claims. Cui bono?”

June 1869

Ballad Stories of the Affections: from the Scandinavian, an unillustrated edition published by Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, in London and Scribner, Welford and Co. in New York.
Advertised in The Times 3 June, 1869.

3 June 1869

Letter to Roden Noel from Gourock, Scotland, thanking him for a loan. The letter also mentions Oban and Buchanan going to see his “Cottage”: “I have written to the Owner, insisting on several alterations before I settle.” This probably refers to Jay’s “The White House on the Hill” - Soroba.

Summer 1869

Professor John Stuart Blackie in Notes of a Life writes the following about his book, Musa Burschicosa: A Book of Songs for Students and University Men which was published in late 1869 (the Preface is dated, ‘Oban, October 1869’):
“I remember I was living at Oban the summer that I was preparing that little book for the press, and spinning out fresh ones every other day as the breeze of the mountain and the breath of the heather might waft the inspiration. And Robert Buchanan, the poet, was living near us at that time in the highest house of the district, perched up on the green braes behind Soroba, and I used to go across the hills occasionally to have a friendly talk with him and his yoke-fellow, who was a very gracious and pleasant person to behold. On one occasion I had just knocked off one of my students’ songs, and asked Buchanan what he thought of it. “Oh, exalted stuff!” he said, or something to that effect; “but you are flinging pearls before swine to write songs for Scottish students. They are a meagre, hard-working generation, who will grind their nose down to any amount of grammar, and thrust their eyes into any amount of theological thorns, but they do not sing.” These remarks, though they appeared to me somewhat slanderous at the time, and Buchanan was given to say sharp things, I afterwards found to be quite true.”

21 July 1869

In a letter to Roden Noel Buchanan mentions being ill - “I’ve been headsore—very, but am trying ice again.”
 

Jay states that although the Public Readings had been successful, Buchanan’s “highly strung nervous system was unable to bear the strain of these public appearances, and after the second reading had been given he returned to Oban, so broken in health that for a time at least every kind of work had to be abandoned.” This is probably a conflation of time and events. The failure (for whatever reasons) of his attempt to launch himself as a public performer, and the apparent failure of his further attempts at play-writing (mentioned in the Browning letters), combined with the expenses of the move to Oban, presumably exacerbated his financial worries. The letter to Roden Noel of June 3, 1869 also mentions his wife being seriously ill “with internal inflammation. On Sunday she was in real danger. She is now better and the Doctor hopes for a slow but permanent cure—for the assurance of which she is ordered to keep her bed for weeks.”  All of these concerns probably combined to cause Buchanan’s ill-health which is mentioned in letters to Roden Noel on 21st July and again on October 16th. However the October letter also includes details of three books which Buchanan was working on at this time so it’s doubtful that “every kind of work had to be abandoned.”

16 October 1869

First (surviving) letter to Roden Noel with the Soroba address.
Buchanan begins the letter with: “Better a bit, thank God, tho’ still far from well. That’s the first news, & by far the most important—to me.”

16 November 1869

Notice in the Guardian:
     “Mr. Robert Buchanan, the poet, is so unwell with cerebral symptoms that literary labour has had to be entirely suspended, and it is not likely to be soon resumed. He has been more or less unfit for active work for some years past.—Athenæum.

22 December 1869

Browning writes to Lord Carnarvon recommending Buchanan for a civil pension. He writes a second letter on 31 December. Browning receives a reply from Gladstone dated 2 January 1870.

1870

29 January 1870

The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley edited by William Michael Rossetti reviewed in the Athenaeum.

William Michael Rossetti firmly believed that the uncomplimentary review of his edition of Shelley had been written by Robert Buchanan, although Buchanan never admitted as much and the The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870 ascribes it to Thomas Watson Jackson. However, Buchanan does refer to the book in his ‘Fleshly School of Poetry’ article in October 1871:
“This work was inscribed to his brother, Mr. William Rossetti, who, having written much both in poetry and criticism, will perhaps be known to bibliographers as the editor of the worst edition of Shelley which has yet seen the light.”
Whether or not Buchanan wrote the original review, the fact that W. M. Rossetti believed he did, added to the animosity felt towards Buchanan by the ‘Rossetti camp’.

12 April 1870

Buchanan awarded a Civil List Pension of £100 per year. This continued to be paid until Buchanan’s death.

Buchanan’s award and the date is included in the chapter on Civil List Pensions in Notes By The Way by John Collins Francis (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909). The relevant section is available here.

26 April 1870

Poems by Dante Gabriel Rossetti published.

29 April 1870

Letter to Browning from Soroba:
“Long reflection makes me regret nothing in the Pension matter; & the money is a boon indeed. On first getting your letter of explanation I was somewhat disappointed,—having faintly hoped the kind helper was one of us, a singer, a brother-artist; but that wore off. All feels peaceful and pleasant.”

May 1870

The Book of Orm: a prelude to the epic published by Alexander Strahan.
Reviewed in the Athenaeum by William Allingham, May 28, 1870.
The following note appears in The Book of Orm, referring to Buchanan’s ill health during this period:
“Continued ill health compels the omission of two poems—”A Rune found in the Starlight,” and “The Song of Heaven”—which, although written, cannot at present be rendered perfect for press. Section IX., too, is incomplete, wanting the all-important “Devil’s Dirge,” which, however, will be added in a future edition.—R.B.”

Summer 1870

Buchanan reads Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Poems.
In a letter to Roden Noel (undated fragment) he writes: “I have just been reading Rossetti & Morris this for the first time. Rossetti is justly described by the North American Review as “a poetical man”; he has the instrumental without the shaping capacity; and his nature seems very poor & thin. ... A more barren week I never spent than when reading these men.”

June 1870

The Syren. A song by Francesco Berger, with words by Robert Buchanan (from Undertones) published by Lamborn Cock and Co.
Reviewed in The Musical Times June 1, 1870.

5 June 1870

Writes to Dr. Thomas King Chambers thanking him for helping to secure the Civil List Pension. He goes on to discuss The Book of Orm, denying it is morbid and adding:
“on my Soul, my thoughts of God & the world are not morbid ones, rather utopian ones & glorious.”

October 1870

‘Dame Martha’s Well’ published in Good Words.
 

4 October 1870

‘Dame Martha’s Well’ reprinted in the Glasgow Herald.

30 November 1870

Buchanan writes to Browning asking if he can dedicate his new book, Napoleon Fallen: a lyrical drama, to him.

7 December 1870

Letter to Browning includes the following passage:
“I cannot describe with what loathing & horror I have read such verses as those called “Intercession”, by that conscienceless & miserable inanity, little Swinburne:—verses which brooded, with a feminine fiendishness, over the prospect of physical suffering & torture to the subject. Dont think that I will ever develope the aesthetic instinct at the expense of conscience & feeling. I would rather die. Truth first; afterwards, if possible, Beauty.”

Buchanan’s two letters to Browning in December 1870 are from the 23 Bernard Street, Russell Square address.

12 December 1870

Letter to Browning cancelling the dedication of Napoleon Fallen following Browning’s objections.

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ROBERT BUCHANAN TIMELINE continued

2: 1871 - 1875

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