Charles Mackay (author)
Charles Mackay (27 March 1814 – 24 December 1889) was a Scottish poet, journalist, author, anthologist, novelist, and songwriter, remembered mainly for his book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
Charles Mackay
March 27, 1814
Perth, Scotland
December 24, 1889 (aged 75)
Poet, journalist, and author
Mary Elizabeth Mills (??–1875) Rosa Henrietta Vale
Journalist[edit]
Mackay engaged in journalism in London: in 1834 he was an occasional contributor to The Sun. From the spring of 1835 till 1844 he was assistant sub-editor of The Morning Chronicle. In the autumn of 1839 he spent a month's holiday in Scotland, witnessing the Eglintoun Tournament, which he described in the Chronicle, and making acquaintances in Edinburgh. In the autumn of 1844, he moved back to Scotland, and became editor of the Glasgow Argus, resigning in 1847. He worked for The Illustrated London News in 1848, becoming editor in 1852.[3]
Works[edit]
Mackay published Songs and Poems (1834), a History of London, The Thames and its Tributaries or, Rambles Among the Rivers (1840), Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841).
Mackay wrote a historical romance titled Longbeard, about the medieval rebel, William Fitz Osbert.[6] He is also remembered for his Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe[7] and the later Dictionary of Lowland Scotch[8] in which he presented his "fanciful conjectures" that "thousands of English words go back to Scottish Gaelic". The linguist Anatoly Liberman[9] has described MacKay as an "etymological monomaniac" commenting that "He was hauled over the coals by his contemporaries and never taken seriously during his lifetime".[10] In 1877, Mackay published his two-volume Forty Years' Recollections of Life, Literature, and Public Affairs. From 1830 to 1870 (London: Chapman & Hall). In volume 2, Mackay describes a journey he made to Famine Ireland in 1849 (pp. 2:76–148).
His fame chiefly rested upon his songs, some of which, including "Cheer Boys Cheer", were set to music by Henry Russell in 1846, and had an astonishing popularity. Some popular poems include "You have no enemies, you say?" and "Who shall be fairest?"[11]
Mackay also authored a book in 1885 on the Founding Fathers of the United States titled The Founders of the American Republic: A History and Biography that included profiles on George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison.[12]
