Reviled poet's work fetches high price at auction

A collection by a scorned 19th-century poet, William McGonagall, commands a higher price than a Dickens first edition

by Lindesay Irvine writing in The Guardian , Friday May 16, 2008

William McGonagall struggled to sell his famously awful poems on the streets of Dundee in the 19th century, but a collection of his broadsheets has today been sold for £6,600 at auction.The folio of 35 broadsheet poems, many signed by the author who died in poverty nearby, was sold at Lyon and Turnbull auctioneers in Edinburgh.

Read Irvine's full story at the Guardian online.