Robert Williams Buchanan
18 August 1841
Caverswall, Staffordshire, England
10 June 1901 (aged 59)
Streatham, England
Poet, novelist, dramatist
Scottish
Early life and education[edit]
He was the son of Robert Buchanan (1813–1866), Owenite lecturer and journalist,[7] and was born at Caverswall, Staffordshire, England. Buchanan senior, a native of Ayr, Scotland, lived for some years in Manchester, then moved to Glasgow, where Buchanan junior was educated, at the high school and the university,[8] one of his fellow-students being the poet David Gray. His essay on Gray, originally published in the Cornhill Magazine, tells the story of their close friendship, and of their journey to London in 1860 in search of fame.[9]
His friend, Scottish-American poet James Mackintosh Kennedy, wrote in Scottish and American Poems: "Robert Buchanan, the well-known British poet and most genial and variously gifted man, visited America in 1884-85."[10] He wrote two poems about Buchanan: "Lament"[11] on his departure, and "Robert Buchanan"[12] upon his death. Kennedy's son, born in 1885, was named Robert Buchanan Kennedy.
Adaptations[edit]
Meg Blane: A Rhapsody of the Sea, a cantata for mezzo-soprano, chorus, and orchestra by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, is based on a poem by Buchanan; it was completed in 1902[23] and premiered to great acclaim that October in Sheffield.[24] Another Buchanan poem "Fra Giacomo" served as the text for a dramatic monologue for baritone and orchestra by Cecil Coles, completed in 1914.[25]
