John Wilson ("Christopher North") was the son of a Paisley manufacturer. After study at Glasgow University, he took his M.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford (1810). Wilson worked as an attorney in Edinburgh before joining the editorial staff of Blackwood's Magazine in 1817, where he became, with John Gibson Lockhart, one of the leading Tory journalists of the age. With support from Sir Walter Scott, Robert Southey, Reginald Heber, and others, he was elected professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh University (1820-51).
TEXT RECORDS:
1812The Magic Mirror, addressed to Walter Scott Esq. by John Wilson.
1816The Children's Dance.
1816The Scholar's Funeral.
1817The Desolate Village. A Reverie.
1817Waking Dreams: a Fragment.
1819A Churchyard Dream.
1819The Radical's Saturday Night.
1822Desultory Stanzas upon receiving the last Sheets of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. LXV, from the Press. By Mr. North.
1822To the Veiled Magician.
1824[All Fools' Day.]
PUBLICATIONS:
A recommendation of the study of the remains of ancient Grecian and Roman architecture, sculpture, and painting: a prize poem. 1807.
Lines sacred to the memory of the Rev. James Grahame. 1811.
The isle of palms and other poems. 1812.
The magic mirror, addressed to Walter Scott esq. 1812.
The city of the plague and other poems. 1816.
Translation from an ancient Chaldee manuscript. 1817.
LIghts and shadows of Scottish life: a selection from the papers of the late Arthur Austin. 1822.
Little Hannah Lee: a winter's story. 1823.
The trials of Margaret Lyndsay. 1823.
The foresters. 1825.
Poems: a new edition. 2 vols, 1825.
Janus: or the Edinburgh literary almanack [with Lockhardt]. 1826.
Some illustrations of Mr McCullogh's Principles of political economy by Mordecai Mullion. 1826.
The poetical works of Milman, Bowles, Wilson, and Barry Cornwall. 1829.
The land of Burns: a series of landscapes and portraits. 2 vols, 1840.
Blind Allan: a tale. 1840?
The recreations of Christopher North. 3 vols, 1842.
The Noctes ambrosianae of Blackwood. 4 vols, 1843.
Specimens of the British critics by Christopher North. 1846.
Works, ed. James F. Ferrier. 12 vols, 1855-58.
Tales by Professor Wilson. 1865.
Essays critical and imaginative. 4 vols, 1866.
Letters from the Lakes by Professor Wilson. 1889.
Lakeland poems by Professor Wilson, ed. Bailey-Kempling. 1902.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
Scottish
Presbyterian
Glasgow University
Magdalen College Oxford
Bachelor of Arts
Master of Arts
Edinburgh University
professor
essayist
poet
Blackwood's Magazine
Edinburgh Literary Journal
Literary Souvenir
Janus
The Amulet
The Anniversary
Rev. William Lisle Bowles
Lord Byron
Thomas Campbell
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Allan Cunningham
Thomas De Quincey
John Finlay
Robert Pearse Gillies
Rev. James Grahame
Anne Grant
Rev. James Gray
Bp. Reginald Heber
James Hogg
William Knox
Charles Lloyd
John Gibson Lockhart
Lawrence Macdonald
William Maginn
John Malcolm
Dr. David Macbeth Moir
Dugald Moore
William Motherwell
Edward Moxon
William Roscoe
Sir Walter Scott
William Sotheby
John Wright
William Wordsworth
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed); DLB.
Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); Edward Quillinan, The Retort Courteous (1821); John Hamilton Reynolds, "Professor Wilson's Danciad" Westminster RevIew (July 1824); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); "Poetry of Professor Wilson" Literary Magnet NS 3 (1827) 73-84; Living Poets of England: Specimens of the Living British Poets (1827); Thomas De Quincey, "Professor Wilson" Edinburgh Literary Gazette (6 and 20 June 11 July 1829); "Contemporary Poets: Professor Wilson" New England Galaxy [Boston] 12 (22 October 1830); George B. Cheever, Studies in Poetry ... Elegant Extracts (1830); William Maginn, "Gallery of Literary Characters: John Wilson Esq." Fraser's Magazine 3 (April 1831) 364 [portrait]; Robert Chambers, revised Thomson, Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen (1832-35; 1870); The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Allan Cunningham, "Literature of the last Fifty Years" The Athenaeum (16 November 1833) 770; S. C. Hall, in The Book of Gems (1838); Illustrated London News 5 (1844) 89 [portrait]; Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); George Gilfillan, in Gallery of Literary Portraits (1845) [portrait]; William Howitt, Homes and Haunts of the ... British Poets (1847); David Macbeth Moir, Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century (1851; 1856) 130-41; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine NS 41 (June 1854) 657-59; Robert Shelton Mackenzie, "Life of Professor Wilson" in Noctes Ambrosianae, ed. Mackenzie (1854); Samuel Warren, "A Few Personal Recollections" Blackwood's Magazine 76 (December 1854) 731-36; Professor Wilson: a Memorial and Estimate by One of His Students (1854); Charles Rogers, Modern Scottish Minstrels (1855-57); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Heartbreak: the trials of literary life, or recollections of Christopher North (1859); Mary Gordon, Christopher North: a Memoir of Wilson 2 vols (1862); Life by R. S. Mackenzie in Noctes Ambrosianae (1863); Andrew R. Bonar, Poets and Poetry of Scotland (1864); William Anderson, Scottish Nation (1866) [portrait]; Ralston Inglis, Dramatic Writers of Scotland (1868); James Grant Wilson, Poetry of Scotland (1876) [portrait]; George Saintsbury, "Christopher North" Macmillan's Magazine 54 (1886); Frederic Boase, in Modern English Biography (1892-1921); Henry A. Beers "Crusty Christopher" The Century 45 (1893); Sir George Douglas, in The Blackwood Group (1897); Maclise Gallery (1898); G. B. S. Douglas, The Blackwood Group (1897); Arthur Cecil Hillier, "Christopher North" Temple Bar 116 (1899); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); George Eyre-Todd, The Glasgow Poets (1903); Alan Lang Strout, "Samuel Taylor Coleridge and John Wilson of Blackwood's Magazine" PMLA 48 (1933) 100-28; Alan Lang Strout, "John Wilson, Champion of Wordsworth" Modern Philology 31 (1934) 383-94; Elsie Swann, Christopher North (1934); Jack, OHEL (1963); Donald H. Reiman, introduction to The Isle of Palms (1978); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for John Wilson:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for John Wilson:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(biography records)
1. | 1817 John Finlay: John Wilson, "Some Account of the late John Finlay" Blackwood's Magazine 2 (November 1817) 186-92. |
2. | 1827 Bp. Reginald Heber: John Wilson, Obituary in Blackwood's Magazine 24 (November 1827) 617-22. |