Alexander Wilson

Stephen Van-Hagen (University of Coventry)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University), Emily Rohrbach (University of Durham)

Dates

Born 6 Jul 1766
Died 23 Aug 1813
Activity 1790-1813

Places

Born in Scotland
Active in Scotland; United States

Activities

Primary

Illustrator
Poet

Resources

Wilson's Works

Save to Bookshelf

The editor of the third volume of the recent

Eighteenth-Century English Labouring-Class Poets

anthologies, Tim Burke, writes in the introduction to his selection of Wilson's poems that the latter was “the most successful of the many Scottish labouring-class poets who flourished in the years following the dramatic rise to fame of Robert Burns” (

Eighteenth-Century English Labouring-Class Poets

vol. III: 1780-1800

, ed. Tim Burke, gen. ed. John Goodridge, 2003, p.179). In 1876 Alexander Grosart argued that this success endured long after Wilson's death, asserting that

… with the exception of Allan Ramsay, Fergusson, and Burns, none of our Scottish vernacular poets has been so continuously kept ‘in print' as Alexander Wilson. Since publication by himself of the thin volume of 1790,

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1189 words

Citation: Van-Hagen, Stephen. "Alexander Wilson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 February 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12020, accessed 27 November 2024.]