Charles Mackay

Charles Mackay (born March 27, 1814 in Perth , Scotland , † December 24, 1889 in London ) was a Scottish journalist and writer.

life and work

Mackay was the son of George Mackay, a soldier in the Royal Artillery and his wife Amely Cargill. Since his mother had died shortly after his birth, his father brought him to London to the Caledonian Asylum where he completed his school days.

At the instigation of his father, Mackay came to Brussels in 1828 to learn languages (mainly Italian and French). When the Belgian Revolution broke out two years later , the entrepreneur William Cockerill, senior , hired him as private secretary. During this time he was already working as a freelancer for the Courier Belge (Brussels) and The Telegraph (London).

After several trips with Cockerill, Mackay returned to London in May 1832 and became a language teacher. His first student was the impresario Benjamin Lumley , whom he taught in Italian. From 1834 he wrote occasionally for The Sun . In that year he also made the acquaintance of John Black , who hired him as editor-in-chief for his Morning Chronicle . He worked there until the autumn of 1844 and then settled in Glasgow to publish the Glasgow Argus there . There he was married to Rosa Henrietta Vale († 1859) and had a daughter and three sons with her.

Mackay studied in parallel to his work at the University of Glasgow Law and in 1846 a PhD ( Doctor of Law ). He concluded a second marriage with the widow Ellen Mills († 1875); this marriage remained childless. The writer Marie Corelli was his illegitimate daughter.

As a journalist, Mackay made two trips to the USA . On his first trip, he toured most of the east coast and Canada . When the American Civil War broke out in April 1861 , The Times sent him to the front as war correspondent . During his research he discovered the Fenian Brotherhood and made their activities public.

reception

Mackay became a member of the Percy Society very early on . Mackay was later able to publish many of his articles again (and hardly revised) in book form. One example is his article, which he published in London Telegraph in 1848 and reappeared in two volumes in 1877 with the title Forty years . There he was the first to describe the " United States of Europe ". Between 1857 and 1858 Mackay lectured for eight months in all the major cities of the United States of America and published the results of his observations in 1860 in the work Life and liberty in America .

Works (selection)

As an author

Fiction

The Thames and its tributaries or rambles among the rivers . Bentley, London 1840 (2 vols.)
The hope of the world, and other poems . London 1840.
Longbeard. A novel . 2nd ed. Routledge, London 1850.
The Salamandrine, or love and immortality. A tale . 2nd edition Routledge, London 1856 (EA 1842)
Legends of the isles and highland gatherings . 2nd edition Routledge, London 1857 (EA 1845)
The scenery and poetry of the English lakes. A summer ramble . Longman, Brown, Green, London 1846.
Voices from the crowd and other poems . Gilpin, London 1846.
Voices from the mountains . Gilpin, London 1847.
Town lyrics and other poems . Routledge, London 1848.
Egeria, or the Spirit of Nature and other poems . Bogue, London 1850.
Under green leaves . Routledge, London 1857.
A man's heart . Gilpin, London 1860.
Luck and what came of it. A tale of our times. A novel . London 1881 (3 vols.)

Non-fiction

A history of London . London 1838.
Signs and wonders. From the Annalen des Wahns (Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds, 1841). Eichborn, Frankfurt / M. 1992, ISBN 3-8218-4086-2 ( The Other Library ; Vol. 86).
The Mormons, or the Latter-Day Saints. With memoirs of the life and death of Joseph Smith , the American "Mahomet" . 3rd ed. Vizetelly, London 1852.
The Gouty Philosopher, or, the opinions, whims, and eccentricities of John Wagstaffe, Esq. Saunders Otley, London 1862.
Studies from the Antique and Sketches from Nature . Virtue Books, London 1864.
Under the blue sky . Marston, Low & Searle, London 1871.
Lost beauties of the English language . Bibliophile Books, London 1987, ISBN 0-9001-2340-0 (reprint of the London 1874 edition).
Forty years' recollections of life, literature, and public affairs from 1830 to 1870 . Chapman & Hall, London 1877 (2 vol.).
The Gaelic etymology of the languages of western Europe and more especially of the English and Lowland Scotch, and of their slang, cant and colloquial dialects . Trübner, London 1878.
The poetry and humor of the Scottish language . London 1882.
The Founders of the American Republic . A history and biography, with a supplementary chapter on ultrademocracy . London 1885.
A glossary of obscure words and phrases in the writings of Shakspeare and his contemporaries traced etymologically to the ancient language of the British people as spoken before the irruption of the Danes and Saxons (1887)

As editor

Non-fiction

The auld Scots dictionary. A concise history of Scottish words, their meanings and origins . Lang Syne Publ., 1992, ISBN 1-85217-001-8 (reprint of the "A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch" edition, London 1888).
A Thousand and One Gems of English Poetry . London 1890.
The book of Scottish songs . New edition London 1866.
The Cavalier songs and ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 . London 1864.

swell

Rolf H. Foerster: Europe. Story of a political idea . Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, Munich 1967, p. 347. No. 785.
Anton Ernstberger : Charles Mackay and the idea of the "United States of Europe" in 1848 . In: Historische Zeitschrift , Vol. 146 (1932), ISSN 0018-2613 .

Web links

Literature by and about Charles Mackay in the catalog of the German National Library
Literature by Charles Mackay in the catalog of the SWB, Südwestdeutscher Bibliotheksverbund
Literature by Charles Mackay in the catalog of the GVK - Common Union Catalog / Union Catalog

personal data
SURNAME	Mackay, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Scottish poet
DATE OF BIRTH	March 27, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH	Perth
DATE OF DEATH	December 24, 1889
Place of death	London