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ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901) |
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SITE DIARY
10 March 2026 The Daily Chronicle 2 I was hoping to do this last year, but the British Library Newspaper Archive had another special offer and since I’d found a few things missing in my last trawl, I set our to sea again, which meant I put off this update. I was coming to the end of the material from The Daily Chronicle, at least Buchanan’s letters, when the BLNA posted pages from The Star, and had another special offer. Now, I’ve been waiting for The Star to appear for a long time, for it’s that paper which contains Buchanan’s support for Oscar Wilde. Until now these letters were on the site in a truncated form, culled from books. Now I could get the originals, plus the letter about the review of Jude the Obscure in The Daily Chronicle, which Buchanan sent to The Star and which subsequently got him banned from The Daily Chronicle. Which would mean another long delay before posting an update and adding all the new material to the site. So, I thought I’d do this now before attacking the stuff from The Star. As I said, most of the new material is from The Daily Chronicle and mostly features more of Buchanan’s letters to that paper. The main topics being: Is Literature Played Out? and Literature and Lucre And another ‘discussion’ which I came across in The Westminster Budget The only other major addition to the site concerns the painter, Rudolf Blind. The tale is told, about halfway down the particular page, about several descendants of Rudolf who have been in touch with me lately. It turns out that most of these are Canadian and it seems that my page, which is only there because Buchanan tried to buy one of his paintings and it was then mentioned in his bankruptcy proceedings, is the go-to source for information about Rudolf Blind. I could make a Biblical reference here, but I choose not to. I apologise for the sketchy nature of this update, but, as I say I’m anxious to get to the material from The Star, and, besides my computer which is on its last legs, crashed for no apparent reason four times while I was trying to get this done. So, fingers crossed for the actual uploading process! _____
5 August 2025 The Daily Chronicle 1 I went on the British Library Newspaper Archive site again since they had updated their Daily Chronicle scans and were now in the period which concerned Robert Buchanan. It meant that I could revise the section, ‘The Wandering Jew Controversy’. Originally this had been taken from photocopies of cuttings from the relevant pages held by the Liverpool Record Office, which had them in its Richard Le Gallienne archive. The controversy ran during January 1893, and I had to leave a lot of the letters out. Now I’ve added pdfs of the actual pages from the Chronicle (apart from one date, which is missing) and have finally been able to complete Richard Le Gallienne’s original review of The Wandering Jew which kicked the whole thing off. I also found that the controversy extended beyond the final cutting from Liverpool and discovered some more letters from Buchanan (I think he was trying to keep the controversy going in order to seel more copies of the poem). The (revised) Wandering Jew Controversy. There’s a lot more from The Daily Chronicle, which I will be adding soon. But, for now, as well as The Wandering Jew, there was the matter of Ibsen. There are two ‘new’ letters from Buchanan (I was making do with extracts from other papers) in the Letters to the Press section. There’s a long letter in response to the poor reviews for The Sixth Commandment, headed “RUSSIA AS IT IS.” And the full letter headed, “THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE OF MERCY”, about the Rayner and Eggleton Case. And a couple of random items from the Chronicle: The Daily Chronicle (11 October, 1890 - p. 4) With five playwrights supplying at the present time no fewer than ten West-end theatres with the staple entertainment, there would appear to be room for other capable dramatic authors could shrewd managers discover them. Mr. Robert Buchanan, whose name until a few years back only fitfully appeared on London playbills, is responsible either wholly or in part for four dramas. He has “Sweet Nancy,” with which the Royalty has just reopened, and “The Sixth Commandment” at the Shaftesbury, besides joining Mr. Sims in “The English Rose” at the Adelphi, and Mr. Horner in “The Struggle For Life” at the Avenue. Next Monday he will have a fifth play running in London in “A Man’s Shadow” at the Grand. Mr. Grundy has two pieces now before the metropolitan public, “A Village Priest” at the Haymarket, and “A Pair of Spectacles” at the Garrick. Mr. Pinero is represented by “Sweet Lavender” (Terry’s) and “The Cabinet Minister” (Court). Messrs. Sims and Pettitt also have shares in two pieces each. They are united at the Gaiety with “Carmen Up To Data,” and are respectively interested in the Adelphi and Drury Lane (“A Million of Money”) performances. ___ And no connection to Robert Buchanan whatsoever. The Daily Chronicle (10 April, 1882 - p.7) |
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Ireland In May I went to Ireland on holiday, Dublin, then Galway, and I took the opportunity to visit County Mayo and the area around the town of Belmullet, where the Buchanans lived for roughly four years, between the autumns of 1873 and 1877. I didn’t make it to Rossport, since nothing remains of Buchanan’s house or the estate it belonged to, but I’ve added some photos of the area to a page in the Miscellanea section. ‘What I did on my holidays (2). A Trip to Belmullet in Ireland.’ _____
26 March 2025 I meant to do this earlier in the year, just to show I’m still here, but life intrudes and now it’s my birthday this weekend, so I thought I’d just pop my head in the door. There’s not a lot to report. I’ve mainly been adding odd things from the last time I trawled the British Library Newspaper Archive and that’s mainly from the pages of Picturegoer. Including an article about the 1916 silent version of When Knights Were Bold starring James Welch. |
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And there’s additional material about the 1929 and 1936 versions. All available in the When Knights Were Bold Film section. Also, staying with When Knights Were Bold, which seems to be the gift which keeps on giving, I came across some photos of the members of the cast of the 1908 Swedish version. The nearest thing I could find to a review of the Swedish production (which was called Bland bålde riddersmän - ‘Among the Bold Knights’), is this mention of the touring production from The Great Theatre in Gothenburg 1893 - 1929: A Few Pages From Its History by Axel Fromell, “Ranft had two tours here. One with Peter Fjelstrup as a guest, played the Danish play ‘A City Home’ that had been performed here before, while the other from the Vasateatern gave ‘Bland bålde riddersmän’ with Olof Winnerstrand as Sir Guy de Vere and Miss Josette — my wife, where Frida Winnerstrand "radiated". Before we leave the Picturegoer, three more items. God and the Man is treated to an ‘Ideal photo-play version of Robert Buchanan’s famous novel. While ‘The Lament of Langhorne’ shines a spotlight on the star of A Man’s Shadow, Langhorne Burton. And there are always those incidental (non-Buchanan related) delights like this. Who knew the actors in Silent Movies occasionally swore?! |
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The only other thing worth a mention is The Speaker, a magazine I had not come across before. I don’t think they were fans of Buchanan. In the issue of 26th September, 1891, there’s a very tongue-in-cheek review of The Outcast, and a review of The Coming Terror in the issue of 18th April, 1891 concludes with this: ‘At present we are not concerned with the justice or absurdity of Mr. Buchanan’s views on human affairs. We have written merely to point out that the unhappy infirmity of his temper leads him to the frequent use of language which disgraces the page on which it is written; and to suggest that, if he must write at all, he might try to write like a gentleman.’ |
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Diary Archives:
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