Smith, Alexander (1829-1867) | Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Alexander Smith was born on December 31, 1829 to Helen Murray and Peter Smith, a pattern designer, in Kilmarnock, Scotland. In the late 1830s, Smith moved to Glasgow, where he briefly attended primary school before beginning an apprenticeship under his father at age 12. Smith began writing poetry as a teenager and was an early member of the Addisonian Society, a working-class literary group formed Glasgow in 1846.

Smith was first published in the Glasgow Evening Citizen in 1850, under the pseudonym Smith Murray. His first volume of poetry, aptly titled Poems, was published in 1853 and contained his most well-known poem, “A Life-Drama.” While this work was initially met with success, Smith received criticism for his sensuous, emotional, and often discursive style of writing. In 1854, Smith was elected to serve as secretary of Edinburgh University, later assuming the role of registrar. He began publishing installments of what came to be his first novel, Alfred Hagart’s Household, in 1865.

Smith married Flora Macdonald in 1857 and moved to Wardie, Edinburgh in 1858. He died of illness at his home in 1867 and is buried in Warriston Cemetery.

Thomas, D.W. "Alexander Smith (31 December 1829-5 January 1867)." In Victorian Prose Writers Before 1867, edited by William B. Thesing. Dictionary of Literary Biography 55. Gale, 1987.

Weinstein, Mark A. "Alexander Smith (31 December 1830-5 January 1867)." In Victorian Poets Before 1850, edited by William E. Fredeman and Ira Bruce Nadel. Dictionary of Literary Biography 32. Gale, 1984.