Rhona Brown
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rhonabrown.bsky.social
Rhona Brown
@rhonabrown.bsky.social
2K followers 1.3K following 100 posts
Professor of Scottish Textual Cultures, University of Glasgow
18th-century Scottish poetry, early Scottish periodicals, textual editing.
Working on a new edition of the poetry of Robert Fergusson (1750-74). 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿📚📖🗞️📰
@rfergussonpoet.bsky.social
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rhonabrown.bsky.social
#OTD in 1774, Edinburgh poet Robert Fergusson died in the city’s asylum for pauper lunatics at 24. Despite the tragedy, his works are full of life, laughter and satire. My new edition of his works is out next year, but for now enjoy some treats from Project Fergusson
robert-fergusson.glasgow.ac.uk
A statue of Robert Fergusson outside Edinburgh’s Canongate Kirkyard. He is not on a plinth, but walking along the street, his coattails blowing and a book in his hand. A plaque commemorating Robert Fergusson in St Giles Kirk, Edinburgh. He is in profile, looking to his right.
October 17, 2025 at 4:27 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
It's #NationalPoetryDay! The perfect opportunity to share Robert Fergusson's translation of Horace's ode on the importance of seizing the day. In rich Scots, Fergusson gives us the keys to a good life: staying in the moment and surrounding ourselves with friends and conviviality.
#RobertFergusson
Ne'er fash your thumb what gods decree To be the weird o' you or me, Nor deal in cantrip's kittle cunning To spier how fast your days are running, But patient lippen for the best, Nor be in dowie thought oppressed, Whether we see mair winters come, Than this that spits wi canker'd foam. Now moisten weel your geyzen'd was Wi couthy friends and hearty blaws; Ne'er lat your hope owrgang your days, For eild and thraldom never stays; The day looks gash, toot aff your horn, Nor care yae strae about the morn. A close-up of the statue of Robert Fergusson outside Edinburgh's Canongate Kirk, which can be seen in part in the background. The bronze sculpture shows Fergusson, with 18thC hair and dress, looking ahead while holding a book in his right hand.
October 2, 2025 at 3:15 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Good luck to @wilcocksonamy.bsky.social as she starts a new post at Queen Mary University of London, where she'll work as a Research Assistant on the Shelley Letters project. It has been a massive pleasure to work with Amy as RA on the @rfergussonpoet.bsky.social project, and there's more to come!
The Fergusson project logo, which features Fergusson's loopy and whorly signature and his portrait superimposed over an 18thC drawing of Edinburgh. Fergusson is looking to his right, with a quill in his right hand.
October 1, 2025 at 3:18 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Poet Robert Fergusson was born #OTD in 1750. At #ProjectFergusson, we're working on a new edition of his works. You'll find an online exhibition, details of a poetry collection responding to Fergusson's life, works and legacies and much more besides on our website!
robert-fergusson.glasgow.ac.uk
A close-up of the bronze sculpture of Robert Fergusson by David Annand, at the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh. We can see Fergusson's head and torso. He is dressed in eighteenth-century garb, with a coat with lapels and large cuffs, a shirt with sleeves flowing under his jacket cuffs, a waistcoat and large bow at his neck. He is carrying a book in his right hand. His hair is curled on either side of his head and is tied back. He looks upwards, his expression reflective.
September 5, 2025 at 10:44 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Just spent a gorgeous afternoon in Lanark watching a new performance penned by the brilliant Martin Travers for the equally brilliant Braw Clan, the Scots Language Theatre Group. If you haven’t heard of Braw Clan, you must! Find out more about their excellent work here: brawclan.com
Four people - three women and a man - in chairs on a stage with red and black curtains as backdrop. They are all laughing. A woman in blue is interviewing three actors, all dressed in black.
August 14, 2025 at 5:37 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
The new Scottish Literary Review is out on Project Muse! A Special Issue, guest edited by Gioia Angeletti and Marina Dossena, it features articles on Early Modern ScotLit, Mary, Queen of Scots, Scottish Picturebooks, migration writings and drama. You can access it here: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55288
The yellow cover for the journal, Scottish Literary Review. It features a black and white line drawing of a stylised thistle growing from the open pages of a book.
August 8, 2025 at 11:38 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Project Fergusson is in the archives at the University of St Andrews, Robert Fergusson's alma mater! We've enjoyed walking in his steps and finding out more about his student days. He was a very naughty boy! More to come on www.robert-fergusson.glasgow.ac.uk...
The spires of St Salvator's church against a cloudy blue sky. A sign reading 'University of St Andrews St Salvators Hall Goods Entrance' on slate and on a yellow sandstone wall. The inside of St Salvators church - warm wood pews, chequerboard floor, high stained glass windows. The spine of a calf bound book on a blue cushion. There is gilt lettering and a red section on the spine.
June 24, 2025 at 8:55 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Genuinely inspiring day today launching our Scottish Literature in the Classroom project with secondary school teachers from across Scotland and the @sqanews.bsky.social. Thanks to colleagues Corey Gibson, Pip Osmond-Williams, Jen Farrar, Maureen Farrell and @dr-ron.bsky.social. More to come soon!
A seminar room full of teachers and academics.
May 9, 2025 at 6:31 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Bonjour, les Alpes 🌞
An alpine street in France. Shops lining the road and snowy mountains loom in the background. A cherry tree in full pink bloom in front of an alpine house and snowy mountain peaks.
April 10, 2025 at 8:10 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Gorgeous day in Aberdeen at the Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies at the University, chatting all things Robert Fergusson. 🌞
Old church building against a very blue sky. Ornate gate posts like towers against a blue sky.
March 18, 2025 at 10:54 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Looking forward to seeing Aberdeen friends next week to talk about editing the works of Robert Fergusson. Did you know... Fergusson is most often associated with Edinburgh - his beloved 'Auld Reikie' - but his family originated in Aberdeenshire. Will be good to be in the Fergusson homeland!
Portrait of poet Robert Fergusson (1750-74) by Alexander Runciman. The background is very dark. Fergusson's face is pale, his eyes large, brown and piercing and his expression serious; he looks towards his right. He has brown curls above his half-visible left ear.
March 11, 2025 at 3:37 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Great to see that my colleague Steven Reid's book 'The Afterlife of Mary, Queen of Scots' is now available in paperback and discounted on the @edinburghup.bsky.social website - check it out if you can! I'm delighted to have a chapter on Mary's 18th-century reception in this fascinating collection. 👇
Advertisement for the book, 'The Afterlife of Mary, Queen of Scots', edited by Steven J. Reid. Paperback, £19.999, March 2025. Save 30% with code PAPER30 edinburghuniversitypress.com. It shows the cover image, which features a modern representation of Mary with red hair and blue and white dress with ruff looking towards a window with green bottles and a view of trees and plants outside.
February 21, 2025 at 3:40 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Most descriptions of Edinburgh poet Robert Fergusson (1750-74) emphasise his striking dark eyes and pale complexion, but this depiction by a friend focuses on other things... 'he was very smally and delicate, a little in-kneed, and waigled a good deal in walking’. 'Smally' to be used from now on...
Contemporary portrait of poet Robert Fergusson (1750-74) by his friend, painter Alexander Runciman. We only see Fergusson's head and neck facing to his right; the background is very dark. His skin is pale and his brown hair curls slightly at his temple. His eyes are very large and dark, his nose straight, his lips full and his chin chiselled.
January 15, 2025 at 10:25 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
@uofglasgow.bsky.social yesterday in its best golden winter garb ☀
A photograph depicting a winter scene. Glasgow University's tower is bathed in golden light and in the foreground the river Kelvin flows, its banks frozen and surrounded by wintry trees.
January 11, 2025 at 10:31 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Delighted to share the CfP for an upcoming Special Issue of Scottish Literary Review, guest edited by @sarahdunnigan.bsky.social and @ainsley76.bsky.social. We'd love to have your contributions to 'Cultures of Care in Scottish Women's Writing'. Details 👇

@scottlyall.bsky.social
@asls.org.uk
Call for Papers 'Cultures of Care in Scottish Women's Writing' Papers are invited for a special issue which will explore the myriad ways in which the concept of care has been imagined by Scottish women writers. 'Care' encompasses a diversity of meanings across philosophical, moral, and spiritual traditions; in practices which range from social to medial to therapeutic, and beyond; and in semantic terms evokes ideas of nurture, protection, welfare; feelings of solicitude, concern, love. 'To care for' someone, or something, is both to experience, and to enact, such affect with vigilance and a kind of watchful attention. We are interested in the ways in which Scottish women writers - across a variety of genres and forms - have imaginatively explored the concept of care as ethos and/or practice. We also invite a range of theoretical and disciplinary approaches from (for example) environmental humanities; medical humanities; history of emotion studies. Themes which might be explored include, but are not limited to: care of, and for self; care of, and for others, including communities and networks; care for nature, environment, and non-human others; therapeutic and/or medical care; concepts of welfare (individual and collective); ideas of nurture; expression of affect and emotion (including anxiety); care as cultural activism; writing/creating as an act of care; the experience of being taken care of. Please send 200 word abstracts and a short bio to s.m.dunnigan@ed.ac.uk and amcinto9@ed.ac.uk by Thursday 30 January 2025.
January 10, 2025 at 10:51 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
It's been quite a year celebrating Robert Fergusson at the 250th anniversary of his death. Our work keeps on and next year we'll be finalising his Complete Works for @edinburghup.bsky.social. Follow us @rfergussonpoet.bsky.social & @wilcocksonamy.bsky.social. Merry Christmas from #ProjectFergusson!
Statue of poet Robert Fergusson, in bronze, outside Edinburgh's Canongate Kirk. The statue depicts Fergusson walking along the street with book under his arm. He's dressed in an eighteenth-century coat (which flaps back in the wind), breeches and boots. His hair is tied back. It's snowing, with show on the ground and gathered on the statue. An extract from Fergusson's 'The Daft Days', his poem in Scots on the Christmas and New Year holidays: When merry Yule-day comes, I trou, You'll scantlins find a hungry mou; Sma are our cares, our stamacks fou O' gusty gear, And kickshaws, strangers to our view, Sin fairn-year.
December 17, 2024 at 11:42 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
That's teaching done for the year. I've enjoyed discussing Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, Violet Jacob, Marion Angus, Margaret Oliphant & more. Henryson's 'Testament of Cresseid', his take on Troilus & Criseyde, is a favourite, with its heartbreaking 'Complaint'. Heaney has a good translation 👇
A stanza from Henryson's Testament of Cresseid, from a section entitled 'The Complaint of Cresseid', in Middle Scots: O sop of sorrow, sonkin into cair, O cative Cresseid, now and evermair Gane is thy joy and all thy mirth in eird! Of all blyithnes now art thow blainknit bair, Thair is na salve may saif or sound thy sair, Fell is thy fortoun, wickit is thy weird, Thy blys is baneist and thy baill on breird. Under the eirth God gif I gravin wer Quhair nane of Grece nor yit of Troy micht heird! Cover of Robert Henryson's The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables, Translated by Seamus Heaney. The letters are capitalised and rendered in blue and red. The cover features a line cut image of a fox, with its right front leg raised and looking up and back to its left.
December 5, 2024 at 11:00 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
A bumper issue of Scottish Literary Review is out now on Project Muse, including essays on Ann Scott-Moncrieff, Neil Gunn & Nishida Kitaro, David Lindsay, William Alexander, RL Stevenson, Anna Hume, Lancelot of the Laik & 'Scott, Scotland and Cuba'.

muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy1.lib.gla.ac.uk/issue/53350
The front cover of Scottish Literary Review, featuring a blue background and white text, as well as a drawing of an open book with a blooming thistle growing out of it.
December 2, 2024 at 12:28 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Those who know Edinburgh will recognise the statue of poet Robert Fergusson at the Canongate. Did you know that sculptor David Annand prefers to call it a sculpture rather than a statue? It has no plinth and Fergusson is literally walking the streets of his hometown of Auld Reikie.
A sculpture of Edinburgh poet Robert Fergusson in bronze. It is located outside a Edinburgh’s Canongate Church and depicts Fergusson walking down the street with a book in his hand and coattails blown by the wind. He is in 18th-century dress - a shirt, coat, breeches and boots - and his his hair is tied back. It is autumn and there are leaves on the ground.
November 27, 2024 at 8:52 AM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Info on a current project for new friends. Alongside @wilcocksonamy.bsky.social, I'm preparing an edition of the works of Robert Fergusson (1750-74) via @leverhulme.bsky.social. 2024 is the 250th anniversary of Fergusson's death - follow us @rfergussonpoet.bsky.social
robert-fergusson.glasgow.ac.uk
Logo for the Robert Fergusson project. Fergusson's swirling signature is in the foreground, alongside an engraved portrait of Robert Fergusson looking to the right, wearing eighteenth-century jacket and shirt and holding a quill. In the background is a line drawing of eighteenth-century Edinburgh.
November 22, 2024 at 1:38 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Been off work sick for a few days now and ruminating on the toxicity of the academic workplace, workaholism, guilt when we need to take time out, etc... hoping this might be the cure...
November 16, 2024 at 3:58 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Enjoyed chatting all things #ProjectFergusson and
@rfergussonpoet.bsky.social at yesterday’s Centre for Robert Burns Studies conference at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Ayrshire. A good way to start 2024 - we’re calling it the Year of Robert Fergusson!
Portrait of Robert Fergusson by Alexander Runciman
January 21, 2024 at 6:18 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
2024 is the year of Robert Fergusson! @rfergussonpoet.bsky.social is commemorating Fergusson's life and legacy throughout this year, the 250th anniversary of his death. Events will be announced on our website: robert-fergusson.glasgow.ac.uk Please follow us and help us remember this important poet.
January 10, 2024 at 12:10 PM
rhonabrown.bsky.social
Researching the way in which Scots poet Robert Fergusson (1750-74) becomes something of a writer’s writer. Internationally celebrated author Robert Louis Stevenson was perhaps a little more than a fan. He said, ‘I believe Fergusson lives in me.’
@rfergussonpoet.bsky.social
November 8, 2023 at 8:51 AM