I shall be spun. There is a voice within
Which tells me plainly I am all undone;
For though I toil not, neither do I spin,
I shall be spun.
(The Waster's Presentiment, 1-4)
Robert Fuller Murray was born Dec. 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, of John and Emmeline Murray. In 1869 John took his son to Kelso, England, and then to York. He was educated at grammar schools in Ilminster and in Crewkerne. Murray then attended his beloved University of St. Andrews from 1881, succeeding more in English than in classical Greek. Lacking other opportunities, he became a research assistant to Professor John M. D. Meiklejohn in 1886, published poems in popular journals, and took to journalism in Edinburgh briefly in mid-1889. He returned to St. Andrews in 1890, his consumption then pronounced. 1891 brought him two diversions, a brief visit to Egypt, and the publication of The Scarlet Gown, but Murray succumbed, not long afterwards, to the disease in St Andrews. His friend Andrew Lang carried his second volume of poems into print in 1894, the year of his death, and in 1909 the St. Andrews Students' Representative Council subvented a second edition of The Scarlet Gown, as Lang then said, "by piety."
Given name: Robert Fuller
Family name: Murray
Birth date: 26 December 1863
Death date: 1894
Nationality: English
Family relations
father: John Murray
mother: Emmeline Murray
Languages
English
Greek
Education
Ilminster Grammar School, England
Crewkerne Grammar School, England
University of St. Andrews (B.A.): 1881
Literary period: Victorian
Occupation: Journalist: 1889 to 1889
Residences
Kelso, England
York, England
Roxbury, Massachusetts, USA: 1863 to 1869
St. Andrews, Scotland: 1881 to 1894
Edinburgh, Scotland: 1889 to 1889
Egypt: 1891 to 1891
Cause of death: Consumption
First RPO edition: 2001