ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

ROBERT BUCHANAN’S LETTERS TO CHATTO & WINDUS

This collection of letters and other items is held at the British Library (Add MS 52480) and was acquired from the executors of A. W. Turner, of Brighton in 1964. The Library’s description of the item is as follows:

“British Records Association Collection. Vol. VII (ff. 124). Letters, etc., of, and on behalf of, Robert Williams  Buchanan, poet and novelist, to Chatto and Windus; 1881-1899, n.d. Partly printed. Most of the letters are addressed to Andrew Chatto. Much of the additional material in the file is in his hand.”

I should explain that this is not a complete record of the collection. Having been informed that there were a number of printed items, mostly newspaper cuttings, in the collection, and in order to cut down on costs (thank you Zoë Stansell), I requested that these were not included in my order for photocopies. Each page of the collection has a pencilled number in the right-hand corner and under each transcription this has been noted, so any gaps in the sequence will refer to these missing printed items. Also, some of the items have been misfiled in the sequence and where this is obvious, I have altered the position and noted the change.

Since I have only been working off photocopies and have not seen the originals, this section should be viewed, not as a definitive copy of the collection, but rather as a work in progress. As well as the missing print items, there are also the occasional gaps (——) or ‘best guesses’ in the text, and there is one particular letter (Item 76) which was almost unreadable, so I apologise for these deficiencies at the outset.

What remains is the largest collection of letters from Robert Buchanan to a single correspondent. However, these are business letters, many of them just brief notes, and Buchanan does not seem to have developed any kind of personal relationship with Andrew Chatto. There is also the fact that this collection obviously does not encompass Buchanan’s entire dealings with the firm of Chatto & Windus. All these caveats aside, this collection of letters, notes, telegrams, draft contracts, letters from other publishers and the bankruptcy court, does serve to shed more light on the life of Robert Buchanan. To take just two examples: Buchanan was intending to publish The Earthquake and The City of Dream simultaneously, the first under his own name, the other, anonymously, in order to repeat the trick of St. Abe, and Buchanan’s first, aborted, attempt at self-publishing was with The Outcast in 1891.

For another view of the collection, Christopher D. Murray’s ‘Robert Buchanan (1841-1901) : An assessment of his career’ (Queen Mary, University of London, 1974. 282 p. - available from the British Library’s EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service for free download) contains an appendix on the Chatto letters, which may be of interest.

Since transcribing the letters I’ve checked them three times and hopefully now, any mistake is due to Mr. Buchanan. I have divided the collection into five parts, detailed below, with a brief description of topics covered.

Robert Buchanan’s Letters to Chatto & Windus

Part 1

Items 1 to 32. 30th January, 1881 to 8th September, 1882.

The Martyrdom of Madeline. God and the Man. A Child of Nature. Purchase of Buchanan’s poetical copyrights. Suggestion for a new book about America. Ballads of Life, Love and Humour. Selected Poems. Failure of Lucy Brandon. Money problems. Foxglove Manor. The New Abelard. The City of Dream. A trip to France. New edition of God and the Man following Rossetti’s death. Problems with God and the Man copyright. The Land of Lorne reissued as The Hebrid Isles.

Part 2

Items 33 to 62. 16th January, 1883 to 17th December, 1885.

Invitation to Storm-Beaten. Robert Haddow. Annan Water. Suggestion for a book of Buchanan’s plays. The Great Problem: a new Decameron (original title of The Earthquake). Money problems. The New Abelard delays. Love Me For Ever written in one week. The City of Dream. Request for books about Cornwall. ‘A Canine Suggestion’ submitted to Belgravia. The Poetical Works. A Letter from America. Matt. Songs of the Cities.

Part 3

Items 63 to 95. 22nd May, 1887 to 17th December, 1892.

The City of Dream. Lecky’s address to Royal Academy Banquet. Buchanan starts process of buying back poetry copyrights. Rachel Dene. William Cairns Jones. The Buchanan Ballads Old and New. The Outcast - Buchanan’s first aborted attempt to self-publish. Copyrights finally bought 18th March, 1892.

Part 4

Items 96 to 123. 3rd January, 1893 to 7th December, 1894.

The Wandering Jew. Come Live With Me and Be My Love. Woman and the Man. The Wedding Ring. Harriett Jay’s book requests. More problems with Rachel Dene. ‘My First Book’. Red and White Heather. Buchanan’s bankruptcy. The Charlatan.

Part 5

Items 124 to 146. 15th January, 1895 to 30th November, 1899.
(plus Additional Undated Letters)

Request for books for proposed article on Mark Twain. Lady Kilpatrick. Buchanan the Publisher. Andromeda. Proposed book of short stories. Buchanan abandoning self-publishing. Additional undated letters.

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