Alexander Wilson

Alexander Wilson was born in Renfrewshire, Scotland; he was removed from school at the age of ten and from the age of thirteen worked as a weaver. For three years Wilson traveled as a peddler, selling, among other items, his poems. He contributed to The Glasgow Advertiser and The Bee. After engaging in a dispute with some master weavers Wilson was suspected of treason and emigrated to America in 1794. He worked as a schoolmaster in Pennsylvania and New Jersey before undertaking the work that made him famous, his American Ornithology.

TEXT RECORDS:

1790The Suicide.
1791The Laurel Disputed.
1804The Solitary Tutor.

PUBLICATIONS:

The Hollander, or light weight: a poem. 1790.
Poems. 1790, 1791.
The laurel disputed: or the merits of Allan Ramsay and Robert Ferguson contrasted in two poetical essays [with E. Picken]. 1791.
The shark, or Lang Mills detected: a poem. 1792.
The tears of Britain: a poem. 1793?
Watty and Meg: or the wife reformed. 1795.
The loss o' the pack: a true tale. 1796.
Rab and Ringan: a tale in verse. 1796.
Oration on the power and value of national liberty. 1801.
The solitary tutor. 1809.
Poetical hints to a certain character. 1809.
The foresters: a poem descriptive of a pedestrian journey to the falls of Niagra. 1809-10.
American ornithology. 9 vols, 1808-1813.
Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect. 1816.
Poems, with a life. 1816.
The spouter: a true tale. 1847.
New way of raising the wind: or Habbie Simpson and his wife. 1868.
Poems and literary prose, ed. A. B. Grosart. 2 vols, 1876.
Life and Letters, ed. Clark Hunter. 1983.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

Scottish
American
Presbyterian

no formal education

laborer
merchant
schoolmaster
poet
novelist
painter

The Bee
Literary Magazine and American Register
Port Folio

Dr. Robert Anderson
Charles Brockden Brown
Robert Burns
Robert Cumming
Gavin Turnbull

REFERENCE:

DNB; DAB; NCBEL.

Alexander Campbell, in Introduction to the History of Poetry in Scotland (1798) 312; "Some Account of Alexander Wilson" Universal Magazine NS 16 (August 1811) 96-97; obituary in Port Folio [Philadelphia] S3 2 (September 1813) 345-53; [portrait in Port Folio S3 4 (November 1814)]; Life in Poems (1816); Thomast Crichton ("Senex"), Biographical Sketches of Alexander Wilson" (1819); "Memento of Wilson, the Naturalist" Port Folio [Philadelphia] S4 18 (December 1824) 487-88; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); "Biographical Sketch of Alexander Wilson" Atlantic Souvenir [Philadelphia] 2 (1827) 307-32; George Ord, Sketch of the Life of Wilson (1828); "Wilson, the Ornithologist" American Quarterly Review [Philadelphia] 8 (December 1830) 360-80; Robert Chambers, revised Thomson, Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (1832-35; 1870); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Charles Rogers, Modern Scottish Minstrels (1855-57); George and Evert Duyckinck, Cyclopedia of American Literature (1856) [portrait]; Cleveland, Compendium of American Literature (1858); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); William Anderson, Scottish Biographical Dictionary (1866); memoir in Alexander B. Grosart, ed. Poems and Literary Prose (1876) [portrait]; Dorsey Gardner, "Wilson the Ornithologist" Scribner's Monthly 11 (1876); James Grant Wilson, Poetry of Scotland (1876); George Eyre-Todd, in Scottish Poetry of the Eighteenth Century (1896); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); James Southall Wilson, Wilson: Poet-Naturalist (1906); Gordon Wilson, Alexander Wilson: Poet, Essayist, Ornithologist (1930); Robert Cantwell, Wilson: Wanderer in the Wilderness (1961); Clark Hunter, "Alexander Wilson: Poet and Ornithologist" Burns Chronicle 3rd Series 16 (1967) 42-50; life in Clark Hunter, ed. The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson (1983); C. R. Johnson, Provincial Poetry 1789-1839) (1992); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995); Tim Burke, in Eighteenth-Century English Labouring-Class Poets (2003).

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Alexander Wilson:

1.	1794 ca.  Robert Tannahill, "On Alex. Wilson's Emigration to America" 1794 ca.; Scots Magazine 69 (July 1807) 526.
2.	1817  J. M'D, "Verses to the Memory of Alexander Wilson, who died at Philadelphia, August 23, 1814" The Star (12 April 1817).
3.	1824  Robert Watt, in Bibliotheca Britannica (1824) 2:972.
4.	1824  Anonymous, "Memento of Wilson, the Naturalist" Port Folio [Philadelphia] S4 18 (December 1824) 487-88.
5.	1825  John Neal, in "American Writers" Blackwood's Magazine 17 (February 1825) 204.
6.	1825  Allan Cunningham, in Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (1825) 1:247-48.
7.	1827  Oliver William Bourne Peabody, in "Wilson's and Bonaparte's Ornithology" North American Review [Boston] 24 (January 1827) 116.
8.	1828  T. F., "The Tomb of Wilson" The Atlantic Souvenir [Philadelphia] 3 (1828) 316-20.
9.	1830  A., "Alexander Wilson" The Ariel [Philadelphia] 4 (1 May 1830) 8.
10.	1839 ca.  John James Audibon, 1839?; Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 4:581-82.
11.	1851  David Macbeth Moir, in Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century (1851; 1852) 101.
12.	1856  Evert A. and George L. Duyckinck, in Cyclopedia of American Literature (1856) 1:545.
13.	1876  James Grant Wilson, in Poetry of Scotland (1876) 1:418.
14.	1876  Alexander B. Grosart, in Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson (1876) 2:ix-x.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Alexander Wilson:

1.	1798  Alexander Campbell, in Introduction to the History of Poetry in Scotland (1798) 312-14.
2.	1811  James Brown, in "Some Account of Alexander Wilson" Universal Magazine NS 16 (August 1811) 96-97.
3.	1813  Charles Caldwell, Obituary in Port Folio [Philadelphia] S3 2 (September 1813) 345-53.
4.	1827  Anonymous, "Biographical Sketch of Alexander Wilson" Atlantic Souvenir [Philadelphia] 2 (1827) 307-32.
5.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 2:486-87.
6.	1855  Charles Rogers, in Modern Scottish Minstrel (1855-57) 1:172-78.
7.	1856  George and Evert Duyckinck, in Cyclopedia of American Literature (1856; 1875) 1:565-71.
8.	1858  Charles D. Cleveland, in Compendium of American Literature (1858) 138-40.
9.	1859  William Anderson, in Scottish Nation (1859-66) 3:649-51.
10.	1896  George Eyre-Todd, in Scottish Poetry of the Eighteenth Century (1896) 2:184.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1791  Robert Fergusson:   Alexander Wilson, in The Laurel Disputed (1791) 28-30.
2.	1791  Allan Ramsay:   Alexander Wilson, in The Laurel Disputed (1791) 20-23.
3.	1806  Robert Burns:   Alexander Wilson, "On seeing the Portrait of Robert Burns. Addressed to the Artist" Literary Magazine and American Register [Philadelphia] 5 (June 1806) 477.