author
Robert Blair
1699–1746
Best known for the haunting poem The Grave, this Scottish minister wrote with a calm, reflective voice about death, faith, and human mortality. His work became an important early example of the graveyard style of poetry and was later famously illustrated by William Blake.
1 Audiobook
The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes
by James Beattie, Robert Blair, William Falconer
About the author
Born in Edinburgh in 1699, he was educated at the University of Edinburgh and also studied in the Netherlands before entering the Church of Scotland. He became minister of Athelstaneford in East Lothian in 1731, following a path that echoed his family's clerical background.
Although he is remembered for a single major work, The Grave gave him a lasting place in literary history. Published in 1743, the poem's meditative, solemn treatment of death helped shape the so-called graveyard tradition in eighteenth-century poetry.
He died at Athelstaneford in 1746. Later readers continued to keep his reputation alive, especially after The Grave was illustrated in a later edition by William Blake, linking his poem to one of the most celebrated artists of the Romantic era.