ABSTRACT
In his own day, and until the middle of the nineteenth-century, no poet of labouring-class origins was more widely read than William Falconer. His most celebrated poem, The Shipwreck, first published anonymously in 1762 ('By a Sailor'), and substantially revised and reissued in 1764 and again in 1769, saw numerous reprints in Britain and America for over a hundred years after his death. A native of Edinburgh, where his father worked as a barber, Falconer worked his way up on merchant and military ships. He published in newspapers and periodicals prior to the appcarance and success of The Shipwreck, which was based in part upon Falconer's personal experience as a survivor of a similar catastrophe. Early critics praised the poem for its authenticity and accuracy, but to a large extent Falconer tried to disguise the poem's autobiographical dimension. The Shipwreck includes extensive technical nautical language alongside equally extensive mythical allusions, demonstrating Falconer's erudition about matters practical and poetic.
