ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

ROBERT BUCHANAN AND THE MAGAZINES

FICTION

God and the Man
serialised in Day of Rest (commencing January 1881.)

The Hampshire Advertiser (8 January, 1881 - p.7)

     The Day of Rest, like its contemporaries, makes a good start with the new year. The present number contains the opening chapters of two new serial tales, Mr. Robert Buchanan contributing one, “God and the Man,” which he prefaces with an impressive poem; and Jean Ingelow writing the other, to which she gives the title of “Don John.” Mr. Strahan commences an interesting series of pepers on “Twenty Years of a Publisher’s Life,” with an account of the establishment of Good Words, under the editorship of Dr. Norman McLeod, of whom there are some pleasant reminiscences. “Cities of the Bible” are also to be described during the year, as are also “The Oldest Religious Buildings in Christendom.” Readers of this magazine have thus a good prospect before them.

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The Dundee Courier & Argus (14 December, 1881)

     Day of Rest brings a volume to a close, and finishes the stories of “Don John,” “God and the Man.” Neither of them have been very pleasant stories, but they are written with considerable power. In twenty years of a publisher’s life, the editor gives an interesting account of Bishop Ewing, a good and able man. The history of the city of Alexandria is given in R. S. Poole’s series of papers on the cities of the Bible. The whole number is good.

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The New Abelard
serialised in The Gentleman’s Magazine (commencing January 1883.)

Bell's Life In London (30 December, 1882 - p.5)

     Mr Robert Buchanan has the place of honour in the Gentleman’s for his romance of “The New Abelard.” Truth to say Mr Buchanan wishes to show that he has a mission to convince the world that the old faiths are effete, and that the intellectual conditions of the age have outgrown Christianity, but we venture to think that a more wholesome mode of conveying the lesson might have been adopted. Like most of those who admire this gentleman’s undoubted talent, both as a novel writer and as a poet, we were under the impression that his bygone days had been spent in throwing darts at the “fleshly school;” but when we read that his hero—a clergyman, of course, for one could hardly evolve an Abelard out of a layman—was weak and cold compared to the Heloise, and that “whenever they clung together and kissed it seemed as if her kisses were given in the eagerness of mastery, his in the sweetness of self-surrender,” and so many pages of et cetera, et cetera, one is puzzled at the obvious conversion. Like his prototype, the new Abelard also says “Sic et non,” and quarrels with his master, and we venture to predict that there will be a good deal of quarrelling before Mr Buchanan lands his hero into a cloister. Mr Hawthorne’s novel is more interesting than ever. Mr Watkins’s paper on “Loch-fishing” is eminently readable, and Mr Proctor’s explanatory article on the philosophy of Mr Herbert Spencer is characteristically lucid.

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The Wrexham Advertiser and North Wales News (6 January, 1883 - p.7)

     THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE (Chatto and Windus, London, 1s).—With this number, Sylvanus Urban, still hale and hearty, enters upon another year and presents the first instalment of volume 254 to his numerous readers. The long life and unsullied reputation of this excellent publication are evidences of the appreciation which has been extended to it during its long life, and the present number lays an exceedingly choice mental banquet before the reader. The first position is occupied by a romance from the experienced and skilful pen of Robert Buchanan, entitled “The New Abelard.” Rarely have we read a tale, the opening chapters of which have excited so much interest or given such promise of another wonderful story from the author of “God and the Man.” We shall be pardoned if we just sketch the opening chapters. The Rev. Ambrose Bradley, vicar of Fensea, is reported to his bishop (Darkdale and Dells) by several parishioners as having “wandered into the howling wilderness of heteradoxy,” by declaring his unbelief in many of the Christian miracles and the inspiration of the Bible. This leads to a correspondence between the vicar and the bishop, in the course of which Mr Bradley writes an eloquent and impressive defence of his position. A scene between the vicar and his lady-love, whose name so far is “Alma” only, under mysterious circumstances, whets the appetite of imagination as to the ultimate result of the story. The article upon “Personal Nicknames,” by W. H. Olding, L.L.B., is instructive and shows much research. A. C. Ewald, under the title “Rejected Addresses,” deals with the love episodes in the life of Good Queen Bess, which were numerous and amusing. Richard A. Proctor contributes a commentatory article upon “Herbert Spencer’s Philosophy,” by means of which the crooked in that gentleman’s writings, is made straight and rough, plain. “Dust” the former serial is concluded, whilst “Science Notes and Table Talk,” are as interesting as usual.

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Lady Kilpatrick
serialised in The English Illustrated Magazine (April to September, 1893.)

The Middlesex Courier (12 May, 1893 - p.5-6)

MAGAZINES.
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     Surely the May number of the ENGLISH ILLUSTRATED beats its own record for variety and freshness. A propos of the Royal Academy, Mr. Harry Quilter writes, on its “Making and Makers,” a most interesting article, especially on the position and responsibility of the public towards the elevating or deterioration of the art. Equally interesting is a short paper, “The Theatres,” by W. Archer. He observes that “The success of Becket certainly shows that the public recognises poetical acting when it sees it. That people are found to take pleasure in this pure-lined, dignified art is certainly an encouraging sign.” But, as the writer acknowledges, fashion enters so largely into a Lyceum success that it is not wise to draw from it any positive conclusion. “The Toad’s Treasure” is a tale by Mrs. Lynn Linton, in which she sketches, or rather caricatures, the state of affairs resulting from having a “wild woman” for a wife, the husband meantime making up for the loss by an overdose of effeminacy. But the tale is too overdrawn to be telling, and, by-the-bye, is the “wild woman” really what Mrs. L. Linton imagines her? If so, is she worthy of, or will she benefit by, Mrs. L. Linton’s anathemas? “A Song of the English,” a poem by Rudyard Kipling, and a pathetic little poem by the Marquis of Lorne,   K.T., together with “Some Rhymes for a Little Girl,” by Lord Macaulay, contributed by Lady Knutsford, form the poetical part of the number, and there are other articles of varied interest, which we have not space to mention. An Irish story by Robert Buchanan, “Lady Kilpatrick,” is the best serial the ENGLISH ILLUSTRATED has had for some time.

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A Dream; and a Deduction
published in The Zoophilist (1 June, 1899.)

The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post (10 June, 1899)

     Mr Robert Buchanan appears to be on the side of the Anti-Vivisectionists. At any rate he has written a short story for the current “Zoophilist,” entitled “A Dream: and a Deduction,” which deals with vivisection. The story is written with his customary ingenuity.

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