The Construction of Robert Fergusson's Illness and Death

This chapter charts the biographical, fictional and medical constructions of Robert Fergusson's (1750-74) illness and death from the late eighteenth to the twenty-first century. Fergusson died at the age of 24 in Edinburgh's Asylum for Pauper Lunatics. Thanks to this fact, commentators have become preoccupied with the legend of his illness and death. This chapter analyses the changing attitudes towards Fergusson's illness throughout the centuries by interrogating biographical constructions, fictional imaginings and modern diagnoses of his condition, in order to reflect on changing attitudes towards mental illness and artistic creativity.