A COLLECTION of poems by William Topaz McGonagall proved more popular than literary phenomenon Harry Potter at auction in Edinburgh yesterday.

Thirty-five of McGonagall’s works—many of them signed—went under the hammer at auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull and eventually sold for £6600.

The collection, sold by a private collector, fetched £600 more at auction than a signed collection of Harry Potter first editions.

McGonagall was born in Edinburgh in 1825 but spent much of his life as a handloom weaver in the jute mills of Dundee. It was there that his love of writing poetry, however bad, was able to flourish.

His most famous poem covered the topic of the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879.

The poems up for grabs yesterday were bought by an anonymous buyer for £5500 plus commission which took the total to £6600.

The works in the collection include Suffrage Poem.

It reads, “Fellow men! Why should the lords try to despise/and prohibit women from having the benefit of parliamentary Franchise/When they pay the same taxes as you and me/I consider they ought to have the same liberty.”

Alex Dove from Lyon and Turnbull said, “Poetry didn’t really come to him until I think he was 47 and the voices in his head told him that he’d be able to write poems.

“Then he thought he was the best thing since sliced bread, he thought he should be the poet Laureate and all sorts.

“He tried to hawk these poems around the streets of places like Dundee and he was notoriously encouraged to give performances just so people could make fun of him.”

Ms Dove said she was not surprised the collection had done so well at auction.

“They were bought by a private buyer who wishes to remain anonymous. It is likely that McGonagall sold some of these broadsheet poems himself on the streets.

“It is thought these poems, which he published himself, would have been his main source of income.”

She added, “McGonagall is obviously not the best poet but he is actually very popular these days.

“Because he’s so bad, because they’re so humorous and a lot of people have kept him going in the media—people like Spike Milligan, Terry Pratchett—it means he’s still in print 100 years later.”