author

Robert Blair

1699–1746

Best known for the haunting long poem The Grave, this Scottish minister wrote with a dark, vivid imagination that helped shape later Gothic and graveyard poetry. His work was admired well beyond his lifetime and even inspired illustrations by William Blake.

1 Audiobook

The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer

The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer

by James Beattie, Robert Blair, William Falconer

About the author

Robert Blair was a Scottish poet and Presbyterian minister, born in Edinburgh in 1699 and remembered chiefly for The Grave, published in 1743. The poem is a meditation on death, judgment, and human mortality, written in blank verse and noted for its solemn, atmospheric style.

Alongside his literary work, he served as a minister at Athelstaneford in East Lothian for much of his adult life. Although he did not leave a large body of writing, The Grave gave him a lasting place in literary history because of its strong influence on later eighteenth-century and early Romantic readers.

Blair died in 1746. No suitable verified portrait image could be confirmed from the sources reviewed, so none is included here.