James Hyslop was born in Dumfrieshire, where he was raised by his grandparents. After rudimentary education at Kirkconnel School he worked as a shepherd. Applying himself to books, in 1818 became a schoolteacher at Greenock. Hyslop contributed poems, stories, and essays to the Edinburgh Magazine, but failing to find patronage took a position as a shipboard tutor and traveled to South America. In 1825 he was employed as a journalist in London and taught Latin. In 1827 he undertook another voyage, during which he died of fever off the Cape Verde Islands.
TEXT RECORDS:
1820Scottish Imitation of a Passage in Tasso's Aminta.
1822 ca.Letter to Anna.
1822 ca.Letter to your Sister.
1822 ca.Stanzas on the cutting out of the "Esmerelda" Spanish Frigate.
1822 ca.To Anna.
1823To Anna. — Wishes.
1823 ca.To Mr. John Laidlaw. (On his Marriage.)
1824The Scottish Sacramental Sabbath.
PUBLICATIONS:
Poems; with a sketch of his life, and notes on his poems, by Peter Mearns. 1887.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
Scottish
Presbyterian
no formal education
laborer
schoolmaster
tutor
poet
essayist
journalist
Edinburgh Magazine
New Monthly Magazine
The Times
Joanna Baillie
Allan Cunningham
James Hogg
Francis Jeffrey
John Gibson Lockhart
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL; CBEL (3rd ed).
Memoir by John M'Diarmid, in Sketches from Nature (1830); Alexander Rodger, "The Muirkirk Shepherd" Scottish Presbyterian (September, November 1840); Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); "James Hyslop, the Moorland Poet" Scottish Presbyterian Magazine (1853); Charles Rogers, Modern Scottish Minstrels (1855-57); William Anderson, Scottish Nation (1859-63); James Grant Wilson, Poetry of Scotland (1876); Life by Peter Mearns in Hyslop, Poems (1887); David McAllister, in Poets and Poetry of the Covenant (1894); Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for James Hyslop:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
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