The Real McGonagall

Subtitled “Poetic Gems Selected from the Works of William McGonagall,” this slim volume was published in 1948. According to a note at the beginning…

In response to many requests this special post-war edition has been reprinted. Owing to restrictions of paper, the publishers have endeavoured to make the best selection of the poetic works of the author.

The selection they made was, for the most part, the poems from the original volume of Poetic Gems, but this appears to have left them a few spare pages. Consequently, two additional poems were added to the list: The Death of Captain Webb and The Death of John Brown. These works were not included in any subsequent collections of McGonagall’s works.

• An Ode to the Queen on her Jubilee Year
• The Death of Prince Leopold
• The Death of Lord and Lady Dalhousie
• The Funeral of the German Emperor
• The Battle of Tel-el-Kebir
• The Famous Tay Whale
• The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay
• The Newport Railway
• The Tay Bridge Disaster
• An Address to the New Tay Bridge
• The Late Sir John Ogilvy
• The Rattling Boy from Dublin
• A Christmas Carol
• The Burial of the Reverend George Gilfillan
• The Battle of El-Teb
• The Battle of Abu Klea
• The Christmas Goose
• An Autumn Reverie
• The Wreck Of The Steamer “London”, While on her way to Australia
• The Wreck of the “Thomas Dryden”
• Attempted Assassination of the Queen
• Saving a Train [Version 1]
• The Moon
• The Beautiful Sun
• Grace Darling or The Wreck of the “Forfarshire”
• To Mr James Scrymgeour, Dundee
• The Battle of Bannockburn
• Edinburgh
• Glasgow
• Oban
• The Battle of Flodden Field
• Greenland’s Icy Mountains
• The Death of Captain Webb
• The Death of John Brown