THE LIFE AND WORKS OF
ISBN: 9780952745525
THE LIFE AND WORKS OF JAMES EASSON
J
AMES EASSON (1833–1865) suffered from more disadvantages than most men are able to bear. He was an illegitimate orphan, and his seaman father died before he himself was born. His mother died when he was two, and he was brought up in Dundee in great poverty by his only surviving relative, his widowed grandmother. He attended only an elementary school and a Sunday school, and worked most of his life as a house-painter in Dundee. He died at the age of 31 in the Lunatic Asylum in Dundee. He left a small book of verse, and had contributed to the Dundee PEOPLE’S JOURNAL several other poems and a number of articles, sketches and short stories that in many cases are illustrative of life in Victorian Dundee and show great concern for the poor, the sick and those with disabilities. He was a popular writer in his time and came to be known as the PEOPLE’S POET. This book includes reprints of all Easson’s extant writings.
JAMES EASSON
THE DUNDEE PEOPLE’S POET By
ANTHONY FAULKES
THORISDAL DUNDEE 2016
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THE LIFE AND WORKS OF
JAMES EASSON
THE DUNDEE PEOPLE’S POET
By
ANTHONY FAULKES
THORISDAL DUNDEE 2016
James Easson Dundee People's Poet.indd 1
07/03/2016 11:39
© Anthony Faulkes Published by Thorisdal 210 Broughty Ferry Road Dundee DD4 6LD
[email protected] ISBN: 9780952745525 Printed by CMP (UK) Ltd
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PREFACE Most of the contents of this compilation are based on books, documents and archives in the Local History Centre in Dundee Central Library, and I am grateful to the staff there for their help in locating items relating to the life and works of James Easson. The runs of the People’s Journal that are available in the Dundee Central Library, however, are unfortunately neither well conserved nor complete: some issues are missing, there are pages missing, some of them having been torn out, and many short items have been cut out with scissors. In most cases I have been able to supplement the Dundee holdings from the online British Newspaper Archive, though in fact only one number containing an article by James Easson that was missing in the Dundee archive was found to be available in the BNA, ‘The Loveliness of Truth’ (April 30, 1864). But I was able to search paper copies of the issues from 1862 and 1865 in the British Library holdings that had not then been added to the BNA. (1865 has since been added to the BNA, but 1862 is still lacking.) The only contribution by James Easson that was found there that was not extant in th