McGonagall, William Topaz (1825-1902)
Inscribed poetry broadside and original cabinet card portrait photograph
£819
Auction: 05 February 2025 from 10:00 GMT
Description
Broadside: New Poems. Beautiful Aberfoyle. Lines in Praise of Mr J. Graham Henderson, Hawick. Dundee: [printed for the author], March 1893. Single sheet, 29 x 23cm, printed on recto only with wood-engraved royal arms to head and two poems each in separate column, inscribed by McGonagall on verso in black ink, ‘This is to certify that I have been photographed by Mr. William Young at Dundee on the 18th March 1893. Witness my hand, William McGonagall, poet and Tragedian’, with the signature of one C. R. Bell as witness below.
Photograph: albumen print photograph, 14 x 10cm, a full-length portrait depicting McGonagall in his dark suit and brimmed ‘priest’s' hat, apparently outdoors, mounted on card (2)
Provenance
From the collection of Dr Norman Watson, author of Poet McGonagall: The Biography of William McGonagall (Edinburgh, 2011).
Footnote
A very rare broadside by the infamous Scottish poetaster, accompanied by the sole known example of a photographic portrait depicting him in his characteristically funereal tragedian's garb. For the broadside, only the National Library of Scotland copy traced in institutions; the photograph was published in Norman Watson, Poet McGonagall (op. cit.), p.151.