Scottish Literary Calendar: January
Epigram on My Wedding Day
To Penelope
This day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you: —
‘Tis just six years since we were one
And five since we were two.
January 2, 1821
George Gordon, Lord Byron
**1|1|1854 (Sir) James George Frazer (1854-1901), Scottish anthropologist whose great work was The Golden Bough, is born, Glasgow. Ref: 2.0101.01**
1|1|1885 Andrew Findlater (1810-85), first editor of Chambers Encyclopaedia dies. Ref: 2.0101.02
1|1|1928 Iain Crichton Smith, poet and novelist, is born, Glasgow. He will be brought up at Bayble on the island of Lewis, and write poetry in both in Gaelic (as Iain Mac a’Ghobhainn), and in English. His novels will include Consider the Lilies (1968). Ref: 2.0101.03
2|1|1803 The eccentric and extravagant James MacNayr, author of the first Guide from Glasgow to some of the most Remarkable Scenes in the Highlands of Scotland (1797), ceased to be Editor of the Glasgow Herald after only two months. Ref: 2.0102.01
2|1|1853 William Collins (1789-1853), publisher, dies Ref: 2.0102.02
3|1|1959 Edwin Muir (1887-1959), poet, translator and adult educator, dies. Ref: 2.0103.01
4|1|1755 Edward Burt, author of Letters from the Highlands, dies Ref: 2.0104.01
4|1|1945 Robin Bell, the poet and translator bred in Strathearn, is born, Dundee. Ref: 2.0104.02
5|1|1540 First performance at Linlithgow of Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Three Estaitis Ref: 2.0105.01
5|1|1793 John Howie (1735-1793), the unlettered Renfrewshire author of The Scots Worthies (who claimed direct descent from an Albigensian refugee) dies. Ref: 2.0105.02
**5|1|1821 Lord Byron writes in his diary of Sir Walter Scott: “wonderful man! I long to get drunk with him.” Ref: 2.0105.03**
5|1|1994 David Angus (1925-94), writer and founder-member of the Scots Language Society, dies. Ref: 2.0105.04
6|1|1882 Sir Alexander Gray (1882-1968), poet, is born Ref: 2.0106.01
6|1|1940 John Byrne, playwright, is born Ref: 2.0106.02
6|1|1981 A. J. Cronin, popular novelist, dies, Switzerland Ref: 2.0106.03
7|1|1758 Allan Ramsay (1684-1758), poet, dies. Ref: 2.0101.01
7|1|1793 James ‘Balloon’ Tytler (1747-1805), miscellaneous writer and early British aeronaut, is outlawed for publishing a pamphlet attacking the government of the day. Ref: 2.0101.02
7|1|1936 Hunter Davies, author of A Walk Along The Wall and many other books, is born Greenock. Ref: 2.0101.03
8|1|1845 Sir Herbert Maxwell (1845-1937), distinguished literary topographer, is born in Galloway Ref: 2.0108.01
**8|1|1845 Harold Monro (1879-1932) opens the doors of the Poetry Bookshop in London, through which pass Ezra Pound and Robert Frost, meeting for the first time. Ref: 2.0108.02**
9|1|1873 James Hannay (1827-73), a Dumfries-born man-of-letters, dies. Ref: 2.0109.01
9|1|1886 James Fergusson (1808-86), Ayr-born architectural historian, dies. Ref: 2.0109.02
10|1|1754 Charles Findlater (1754-1838), agricultural writer and essayist, is born in the manse of West Linton, Peeblesshire Ref: 2.0110.01
10|1|1885 Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-994) writes to the Atheneum from Bournemouth upbraiding the French Academy for honouring a French critic’s History of English Literature, pointing out inaccuracies with regard to James 1′s Kingis Quair. Ref: 2.0110.02
10|1|1941 Sir John Lavery (1856-1941), painter, whose witty self-portrait was A Painter’s Life, dies. Ref: 2.0110.03
11|1|1933 Duncan Glen, poet, is born Cambuslang, Lanarkshire. In addition to his own work he will collect and publish the work of his contemporaries. Ref: 2.0111.01
12|1|1889louisstott|Louis|Stott|louisstott@aol.com|Subject|041098|Monument to Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), dramatist, unveiled, Bothwell, Lanarkshire. Ref: 2.0112.01
12|1|1932 George Mann Macbeth (1932-92), poet, is born, Shotts, Lanarkshire Ref: 2.0112.02
13|1|1563 Mark Alexander Boyd (1563-1601), lyric-poet, is born Penkill, Ayrshire. Ref: 2.0113.01
13|1|1893 Sheriff Alexander Nicolson (1827-93), Gaelic scholar, poet and wit, dies. An enthusiastic mountaineer, the highest peak in the Cuillins is named after him. Ref: 2.0113.02
14|1|1835 Henry MacKenzie (1745-1831), the novelist known as the ‘Man of Feeling’, dies. He has been the pillar of the ‘Scottish Enlightenment” Ref: 2.0114.01
14|1|1925 David MacRitchie, accountant, historian and folklorist, dies, Edinburgh Ref: 2.0114.02
**15|1|1752 Tobias Smollett anonymously publishes Habakkuk Hibling, his pamphlet charging Henry Fielding with plagiarism. Ref: 2.0115.01**
15|1|1886 Helen B. Cruikshank (1886-1975), poet and pivotal figure during the ‘Scottish Renaissance’, is born, Angus Ref: 2.0115.02
15|1|1973 Neil Millar Gunn (1891-1973), novelist, dies.The son of a fisherman his novels, including Highland River (1937) and The Silver Darlings (1941), have strikingly evoked the county of Caithness.| 2.0115.03
15|1|1775 Sydney Goodsir Smith (1915-75), poet, dies in Edinburgh. He had taught himself Middle Scots and wrote very successful poetry in the vernacular during the ‘Modern Scottish Renaissance’. Ref: 2.0115.04
16|1|1741 Hesther Thrale (Mrs Piozzi) to whom Samuel Johnson wrote much about Scotland, is born. She will later travel to Scotland, following Johnson’s visit. Ref: 2.0116.01
16|1|1905 First appearance of Neil Munro‘s ‘Para Handy’, the skipper of ‘The Vital Spark’, in the Glasgow Evening News Ref: 2.0116.02
17|1|1833 James Ballantyne (1772-1833), Kelso-is born publisher of Scott’s works, dies. Ref: 2.0117.01
17|1|1883 (Sir) Edward Montague Compton MacKenzie (1883-1974), novelist, is born in the county of Durham of Scots ancestry. He will write many witty novels about Scottish life. Ref: 2.0117.02
18|1|1815 Walter Scott’s epic poem Lord of the Isles published by Constable Ref: 2.0118.01
*18|1|1936 Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), poet and one-time Rector of St Andrews University, whose mother was a MacDonald, dies. Ref: 2.0118.02*
19|1|1619 Ben Jonson (1572-1637), English dramatist, departs for London after visiting William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649), the most famous Scottish poet of his day Ref: 2.0119.01
*19|1|1809 Edgar Allan Poe, the American novelist, who went to school in Irvine, Ayrshire, is born Ref: 2.0119.02*
*20|1|1806 Nathaniel Parker Willis, poet and a notable American literary visitor to C19 Scotland, (who, unusually, dies on the same date in 1867), is born Ref: 2.0120.01
20|1|1849 Robert Cadell (1788-1849), publisher of Scott’s last novels, dies, Ratho Ref: 2.0120.02
*20|1|1900 John Ruskin, critic, closely connected in various ways with Perthshire, dies. Ref: 2.0120.03*
21|1|1802 John Moore (1729-1802), friend and biographer of Tobias Smollett, dies Ref: 2.0121.01(LS)
*22|1|1788 George Gordon, Lord Byron, poet, is born, London. Ref: 2.0122.01(LS)*
23|1|1933 Stewart Alan Robertson (1866-1933), poet, dies. Ref: 2.0123.01(LS)
23|1|1996 Norman MacCaig (1910-96), poet, dies. Ref: 2.0123.02
24|1|1874 Adam Black (1784-1874), the success of whose Edinburgh publishing house was built on the purchase of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1827, dies. Ref: 2.0124.01
**25|1|1759 Robert Burns (1759-1896), poet, is born, Alloway. Ref: 2.0125.01**
25|1|1772 James Hogg, poet and novelist, wrongly supposed that, like Burns, he was is born on this day Ref: 2.0125.02
25|1|1796 William MacGillivray (1796-1852), author and naturalist, is born in Aberdeen Ref: 2.0125.03
25|1|1928 Francis George Scott (1880-1958), the musician who became a mentor and a friend to Hugh MacDiarmid, is born, Hawick, Roxburghshire. Ref: 2.0125.04
25|1|1915 Ewan MacColl, the folklorist, often considered Scottish as his mother came from Auchterarder in Perthshire, is born, Salford, Lancashire. Ref: 2.0125.05
26|1|1722 (Rev) Alexander Carlyle, diarist, is born Cummertrees, Dumfries-shire. He will become minister of Inveresk, Musselburgh. Because of his stature and his commanding presence he will be known as ‘Jupiter’ Carlyle. Ref: 2.0126.01
26|1|1736 John Ramsay of Ochtertyre , antiquary and chronicler of the Scottish Enlightenment, is born Ref: 2.0126.02
26|1|1869 George Douglas Brown (1869-1902), author of the groundbreaking Scottish novel, The House With The Green Shutters (1901), is born Ochiltree, Ayrshire Ref: 2.0126.03(LS)
27|1|1844 Charles Nodier (1780-1844), the French author who has set two of his novels in Scotland, Trilby and La Fée Aux Miettes, dies Ref: 2.0127.01
28|1|1901 Robert McLellan, dramatist and miscellaneous writer, is born, Linmill, Lanark (dies 30 January, 1985 at High Corrie, Arran) Ref: 2.0128.01
29|1|1951 James Bridie (O.H.Mavor), dramatist, dies. Ref: 2.0129.01(LS)
29|1|1838 David Gray, poet, is born at Merkland, Kirkintilloch. His most important poem, in the style of Thomson’s Seasons will celebrate The Luggie, a burn at his birthplace. Ref: 2.0129.02
30|1|1813 (Rev) George Gilfillan, litterateur, is born, Comrie, Perthshire. Ref: 2.0130.01
30|1|1944 Frederick Niven, Glasgow novelist, dies in Canada. Ref: 2.0130.02
31|1|1522 Bishop Gavin Douglas’s last extant letter written on his way into exile from Carlisle. Ref: 2.0131.01
31|1|1793 Dean Edward Bannerman Ramsey, witty social historian of his own times, is born. Ref: 2.0131.02
31|1|1925 John Morton Boyd, naturalist, is born Darvel, Ayrshire Ref: 2.0131.03
Louis Stott Database: 69 entries
Updated: 310809
