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Allan Cunningham was a prolific author in a variety of genres. His poetry, much of it in dialect, is generally accomplished and memorable, although his drama and fiction are only of historical interest. During the latter part of his career he became a literary biographer, producing a reference work on British literature and biographies of Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and James Thomson.
Cunningham was born in a cottage in the parish of Keir in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, on 7 December 1784. His father, John Cunningham, was employed at that time as a factor at Blackwood House, the estate of a Mr. Copeland. Two years later the family moved to Dalswinton, where John Cunningham took a similar position on the estate of Patrick Miller, an eminent businessman who was associated with the development of steam navigation. Allan Cunningham's mother, Elizabeth Harley Cunningham, was the daughter of a Dumfries merchant; Cunningham's biographer, David Hogg, describes her as "a lady of great personal attractions and accomplishments, shrewd in judgment, poetic in fancy, and altogether possessing a very superior intellect, which she transmitted to her family, both sons and daughters...."
The family faced financial difficulties, and the children's formal education was limited; the dame schools they attended did little more than teach their students how to read the Bible.
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