Böcker i Cambridge Library Collection - English Men of Letters-serien

John Addington Symonds (1840-93), well known as an author, poet and critic, wrote this biography of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) in an attempt to portray the complete man. Shelley, Symonds writes, was more than a controversial atheist. He was full of earnest conviction, enthusiasm, and intellectual vigour, but also extravagance, crudity and presumption. Published in 1878 in the first series of English Men of Letters, this book thus provides an account of a literary life famously cut short, describing a writer whose intellectual and poetic legacy was perhaps not fully appreciated in the Victorian period, when the response to his poems was frequently coloured by antipathy to his revolutionary ideas and his unconventional private life, as well as to his loudly proclaimed atheism.

Published in 1881 in the first series of English Men of Letters, this biography by Sir Sidney Colvin of the poet Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) opens with the claim 'few men have ever impressed their peers so much, or the general public so little'. Landor's turbulent life included suspension from both Rugby and Oxford, numerous love affairs, an illegitimate child, and frequent legal trouble over his writing, including a libel case which caused him to leave England permanently. He is best known for his six-volume Imaginary Conversations, a series of dialogues between characters ranging from antiquity to Landor's literary contemporaries. This book not only describes Landor's life but also discusses his poetry and prose. Colvin (1845-1927), who was director of the Fitzwilliam Museum and later keeper of prints and drawings at the British Museum, also wrote the volume on Keats in this series.

John Dryden (1631-1700) was an English poet and playwright, whose works led to the English Restoration period becoming known as 'The Age of Dryden'. Published in 1881 in the first series of English Men of Letters, this biography by George Saintsbury (1845-1933), author and critic, sets Dryden's work against the literary landscape of its time, arguing that he reformed English literature, and exploring how he did so, the nature of the reform, and Dryden's contribution to literary history. He shows Dryden to have been a man without moral, political or intellectual agendas who, while not achieving perfection, created works free of elitism and which therefore had far wider relevance to the ordinary man than those of his predecessors. This leads Saintsbury to conclude that while Dryden was no extraordinary genius, he deserves to be considered the greatest craftsman in English letters.

This critical essay and biography by Henry James (1843-1916) of his fellow American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), today best remembered for The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, was published in the first 'English Men of Letters' series in 1879, and is notable for being the only volume in that series devoted to an American. It is now recognised as being one of the first critical studies of an American writer, and it remains an important work for students and admirers both of James and of Hawthorne. In his critical assessment, James, whose own writing was strongly influenced by Hawthorne, seeks to identify him not only as a great novelist, but particularly as an American novelist, rooted in the landscape, and speaking in the language, of the New World.

This 1879 biography of poet and author Robert Southey (1774-1843), friend of Coleridge and Wordsworth, and Poet Laureate, provided a fresh and concise account of his literary endeavours and personal experiences. Written by Edward Dowden (1843-1913), an author and poet of the subsequent generation, and published in the first series of English Men of Letters, the work charts Southey's life, education, travels and literary activities, as well as his changing political views from the Jacobinism of his youth to the relatively conservative outlook of his later years. The book is notable for the extensive quotations which allow the reader to hear the subject's voice, but takes its cue from the writings as a whole instead of engaging in the analysis of individual books and poems.

This biography of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340-1400) was published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1879. Its author, Sir Adolphus William Ward (1837-1924), a prominent scholar who became President of the British Academy, wrote on English literature from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, translated Curtius' History of Greece, and was a historian of both Britain and Germany. He approached the task of writing Chaucer's life as a historian rather than as a literary critic, emphasising the archival sources from which information on Chaucer the man, the civil servant and the courtier could be drawn, and placing the life very much in the context of the times. An epilogue discusses the legacy of the 'father of English poetry' to the poets and dramatists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the renewal of interest in Chaucer's works in the nineteenth century.

This biography of William Cowper by Goldwin Smith (1823-1910) was published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1880 (this reissue being from the 'ninth thousand' of 1881). Smith states in his opening chapter that Cowper (1731-1800) 'is the most important English poet of the period between Pope and the illustrious group headed by Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley ... he may perhaps himself be numbered among the precursors of the Revolution, though he was certainly the mildest of them all'. He also regards Cowper as the great poet of the religious revival of the eighteenth century. Smith himself was an Oxford-educated historian who wrote for the Saturday Review among other periodicals. He was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford in 1858, and later taught at Cornell University, before settling in Canada, where he wrote widely on historical, constitutional and religious topics.

John Bunyan (1628-88), the Bedfordshire tinker and non-conformist preacher, is best known for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Published in 1880 in the first series of English Men of Letters, this revealing biography by J. A. Froude (1818-94), historian and friend and biographer of Thomas Carlyle, traces Bunyan's life from his troubled childhood to his early spiritual experiences, his career as a dissenting minister and his imprisonment (during which he contemplated and wrote many of his works) for preaching unlawfully. Setting The Pilgrim's Progress within the context of Bunyan's life, Froude argues that the struggles of its 'hero', Christian, to overcome temptation and sin reflected Bunyan's personal turmoil as he was plagued with guilt and self-doubt, feelings that were only further compounded upon his religious conversion. Froude's study can be read with interest today by scholars of theology and literature alike.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) is famous for his poetry and historical romances such as Ivanhoe and Rob Roy. As the first English-language author to achieve truly international fame in his lifetime, his depiction of Scottish history and culture spread around the world so effectively that it persists even today. Scott also contributed to Scottish history himself: in 1818 he helped to unearth Scotland's missing crown jewels, and he also led the campaign that saved the Scottish banknote when the London Parliament threatened its existence. First published in 1878 in the first series of 'English Men of Letters', this biography by the journalist Richard H. Hutton (1826-97) tells Scott's story from his childhood and ancestry, through his early years as an advocate to his extraordinary fame and success as a writer, through bankruptcy to recovery, and his final days.

Described by his biographer as the author of 'monumental and supreme' histories, Edward Gibbon (1737-94) is widely acknowledged as a major figure of the Enlightenment and the father of modern historical scholarship. However, despite these epithets, the personal life of one of the eighteenth century's most successful authors remains unknown to many of his readers. Published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1878 (and going into a second edition in the same year), this biography by James Cotter Morison (1832-88) provides a learned but accessible account of the man who wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Starting with a childhood plagued by ill health and infirmity, and covering Gibbon's time in the militia and travelling on the Grand Tour, Morison leads readers through a life which was apparently unremarkable, but in fact resulted in a work of enduring scholarly achievement.

Combining intellectual enthusiasm with analytical bite, David Masson's biography of the self-confessed opium eater provides readers with valuable insights into an author whose life oscillated between respectability, vagrancy and infamy. Published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1881, only two decades after the death of Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859), and written by a man who, like his subject in his more prosperous years, was a journalist and editor in the heart of literary London, Masson's account describes a man and a nation at the peak of their cultural influence. Covering not only the Confessions, but also his less well known essays in the London Magazine, Blackwood's, the Edinburgh Saturday Post and the Instructor, this literary portrait places the life - debts and drug use, but also fame, success and the friendship of some of the greatest writers of the age - in the context of the works.

Written by Scottish novelist William Black (1841-98), this biography of the Irish-born poet, dramatist and novelist Oliver Goldsmith (c.1728-74) was published in 1878 as the sixth book in the first series of English Men of Letters. Goldsmith is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and the play She Stoops to Conquer (1771), as well as his close association with Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, and William Hogarth. The biography is a colourful one: as Black observes, Goldsmith, who was trained as a physician but whose whole career was in literature, possessed a 'happy knack of enjoying the present hour', and his pursuit of pleasure frequently left him in debt. Black himself was one of the most prolific and popular writers of his day; a collected edition of his works published 1892-4 ran to twenty-six volumes.

Published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1879, a time when a complete edition of Daniel Defoe's works was yet to be collated, this biograhical account by William Minto (1845-93) was a significant achievement in literary scholarship as well as an engaging portrait of a colourful and outspoken polemicist. Himself a journalist and essayist for the pioneering Pall Mall Gazette and the Daily News, Minto combines the critical insight of a literary scholar with the empathy and understanding of a fellow writer. Spanning the novelist's entire life (c. 1659-1731), from the passions of his youth to the publication of Robinson Crusoe, his 'later journalistic labours' and the impact of literary success, this biography tells how Defoe disproved the rule that the lives of men of letters are rarely eventful.

Like other works in the first series of English Men of Letters, Shairp's 1879 biography of Robert Burns (1759-96) is a work of both history and literary criticism that can be used as an entry point to a wider study of its subject. Literary scholar John Campbell Shairp (1819-85) was born in Linlithgowshire and educated at Oxford. His publications include the essay collection Culture and Religion (1870) and Studies in Poetry and Philosophy (1868), both of which ran to multiple editions. In 1877 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and held that chair in conjunction with the principalship of the United College of St Andrews until his death. With the insights of a historian and a poet, Shairp explores Burns' life through places lived in and travelled to, before turning to the 'characters, poems, and songs' of a poet widely admired in the late Victorian period.

Edmund Spenser (1552-99) has been described as one of the greatest English poets, and is best known for The Faerie Queene, which he composed in celebration of the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. Published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1879, this biography by R. W. Church (1815-90), Dean of St Paul's, recounts Spenser's life and work, hailing him as a genius who continued the Chaucerian tradition of reflecting the deepest human passions through verse. Beginning with an account of his early life and his time as a Cambridge scholar, Church moves on to explore Spenser's career as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the then Lord Deputy of Ireland. He concludes with a detailed analysis of The Faerie Queene, explaining its significance as a work of moral philosophy, and one that represented a cornerstone of English literary history.

This volume on Edmund Burke (1729-97), published in 1879 in the first series of English Men of Letters, was written by the general editor of the series, John Morley (1838-1923). Himself a politician as well as an author, Morley had previously published a 'historical study' of Burke in 1867, but emphasises in an introductory note that this book 'is biographical rather than critical' and is intended as a narrative life. Morley himself was a radical in politics, and his interest in Burke, who he does not hesitate to characterise on occasion as a narrow-minded reactionary, may seem surprising, but he greatly admired his subject's independent political stance, which he describes as a mixture of utilitarian liberalism and historic conservatism, unfettered by abstract doctrine, and which he believed might again come to dominate political discourse in the last decades of the nineteenth century.

This life of John Milton was first published in the English Men of Letters series in 1879. Its author, Mark Pattison (1813-84) spent most of his adult life in Oxford, as a student, a tutor, and eventually, from 1861, Rector of Lincoln College. Pattison's scholarly interest in religious thought in England, and in the history of classical learning after the Renaissance, made him the ideal biographer for the poet whose writing life was spent in justifying God's ways to man, and whose knowledge of Greek and Latin literature was almost unmatched. Pattison sees the life as divided into three periods: he provides a narrative of events and an analysis of Milton's literary output (both verse and prose) for each. The final chapter is a discussion of the major poems: Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, concluding with the assertion of Milton's supremacy over all English writers except Shakespeare.

Written by the novelist Anthony Trollope (1815-82), who had been a friend of William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63) since 1860, and originally published in 1879 in the first series of English Men of Letters, this book surveys the life and works of the author of Vanity Fair. It remains a useful introductory text about an author who is still popular today, and offers insights into Victorian assumptions about novel writing, as well as providing an account of Thackeray's life and career which benefits from Trollope's personal knowledge of his subject. A prolific author of both fiction and non-fiction, Trollope is best remembered today for his 'social comedy' novels. In this biography, he addresses what he describes as every reader's desire to know not only the works, but the man behind them.

What is philosophy about? According to the author of this work (published in the first series of 'English Men of Letters' in 1879) it is fundamentally the answer to the question: 'What can I know?' T. H. Huxley (1825-95), the distinguished English scientist and disciple of Darwin, succeeds in giving a clear and succinct account of the way in which Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-56) answered this question. The book is divided into two parts: in the first, Huxley provides the reader with a sketch of Hume's life, but the main emphasis of the book is in Part 2, where by expounding Hume's views on the object of philosophy, consciousness, theology, language and free will, Huxley guides the reader towards an understanding of how Hume's philosophical principles can be regarded as a search for the ultimate element out of which all valid knowledge may be shown to emerge.

The English poet, literary critic, biographer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson (1709-84) is perhaps most famous for his Dictionary of the English Language and the influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, and is often considered the most distinguished man of letters in English history. First published in 1878 in the first series of 'English Men of Letters', this biography by the eminent critic Sir Leslie Stephen traces Johnson's life from his childhood to his career as a writer and literary critic, and concludes with an overview of his works. Stephen describes Johnson's style as one of 'masculine directness', reflecting a life blighted by experiences of poverty and disease, and a desire to escape from pain. Painting a striking portrait of one of the most vigorous intellects of the eighteenth century, this work remains of interest to literary scholars today.

Published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1882, this biography of Charles Dickens (1812-70) provides a short introduction to the life and works of the most popular author of the Victorian era. Sir Adolphus William Ward (1837-1924), a prominent scholar who taught at the newly founded the University of Manchester and became President of the British Academy, wrote on English literature from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and translated Curtius' History of Greece. His work complements earlier biographies of the writer who styled himself as 'The Inimitable' and whose influence as a novelist, social commentator and social reformer cannot be overstated. The life is treated chronologically, and a final chapter discusses 'the future of Dickens' fame', concluding that although he has faults as a novelist, his place in the canon of English literature is secure.

The Scots novelist Margaret Oliphant (1828-97) published this biography of the playwright and poet Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) in the first 'English Men of Letters' series in 1883. Sheridan is best known for his plays The Rivals, A Trip to Scarborough, and The School for Scandal, which was his most popular work among his contemporaries. Sheridan was also at one point the owner of the famous Theatre Royal on Drury Lane, which he purchased with his father-in-law in 1776. He led a radical political career, becoming a Whig MP in 1780 and quickly developing a reputation as a brilliant orator. He defended the French Revolution and supported American colonists against British colonial policy. Oliphant's biography covers Sheridan's youth, dramatic writing, political career and middle age; her vivid and sympathetic portrayal provides a valuable insight into his remarkable life.

W. J. Courthope's biography of politician and writer Joseph Addison (1672-1719) was published in 1884 in the first series of English Men of Letters. Educated at Harrow and Oxford, Courthope (1842-1917) was elected fellow of the British Academy in 1907. His scholarly works include a biography and edition of the works of Alexander Pope. This work begins not with an account of Addison's birth and childhood but instead with an essay on 'The State of English Society and Letters after the Restoration', contextualising a writer whose periodical essays were still widely read and enjoyed in the late nineteenth century. The book focuses more on Addison's literary career than his political activity in support of the Whigs, devoting chapters to his work for The Tatler, The Spectator (which he co-founded with Richard Steele) and The Guardian, his tragedy Cato, and his notorious quarrel with Pope.

This introduction to the life and works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1884. The author, R. W. Church (1815-90), who also wrote on Spenser for this series, begins forcefully: 'The life of Francis Bacon is one which it is a pain to write or to read. It is the life of a man endowed with as rare a combination of noble gifts as ever was bestowed on a human intellect ... And yet it was not only an unhappy life; it was a poor life.' Church, while paying the highest tribute to Bacon's intellectual achievements in so many different fields, argues that 'there was in Bacon's 'self' a deep and fatal flaw. He was a pleaser of men.' He believed that this work should correct the adulatory stance adopted by earlier biographers, and reveal the whole, imperfect man.

The publication in 1798 of Lyrical Ballads, written by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), is considered to be the starting point of the Romantic movement. Published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1884, this biography by H. D. Traill (1842-1900), who also wrote on Sterne for the series, sets Coleridge's work within the context of his troubled childhood, his travels, and the depression and financial crises that plagued his life. The first writer to attempt a detailed account of Coleridge's life and work - which ranged from poetry, journalism and literary criticism to history, philosophy and theology - Traill admits to some difficulty in tracing source material, particularly as Coleridge's theological and philosophical writings were largely incomplete, and remained unpublished at his death. Nonetheless he reveals something of both the writer and also the man famously described by Lamb as 'an Archangel a little damaged'.

Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86) was an English poet and courtier who is now seen as one of the most influential English writers of the sixteenth century. Born into a politically active family, Sidney is best known for his works Astrophel and Stella, a story in sonnet form which popularised this literary genre in England, and Arcadia, a romance which was the first English vernacular work to be published on the continent. This volume, published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1886 by literary scholar John Addington Symonds (1840-93), provides a concise biography of a fascinating character. Describing Sidney's childhood, European travels and time spent as a courtier, and his heroic death, this biography draws together previous scholarship on Sidney to provide a valuable account of his life and of contemporary English and continental influences on his work.

Sir Sidney Colvin (1845-1927) was the obvious choice to write a book on John Keats (1795-1821) for the first series of English Men of Letters. At various times Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, Colvin had a long-standing interest in the poet, publishing an edition of his letters to family and friends in 1891, and later writing a longer biography, published in 1917. This introduction to the poet, which used print and manuscript sources not available to earlier biographers, was first published in 1887. In his preface, Colvin admits that 'I have not attempted to avoid saying over again much that in substance has been said already, and better, by others ... I hope to have contributed something of my own towards a fuller understanding both of Keats's art and life'.

This biography of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) was published in the first series of English Men of Letters in 1892. The author, John Nichol (1833-94), who also wrote on Byron for the series, was an author, poet and critic who was for many years professor of English literature at the University of Glasgow, and who moved in the same intellectual circles as Carlyle, though as he states in his prefatory note, he knew him only slightly. Nichol acknowledges his indebtedness in this work to J. A. Froude, Carlyle's friend, disciple and biographer, but his portrait of the 'master spirit of his time' does not attempt to gloss over the notorious difficulties of Carlyle's personality. Several chapters are devoted to the reception of his works, their influence and the likelihood of their continuing importance: Nichol concludes that Carlyle was 'in truth, a prophet, and he has left his gospels'.

The publication in 1798 of Lyrical Ballads, written by William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is considered to have launched the Romantic movement. Published in 1881 in the first series of 'English Men of Letters', this biography of Wordsworth by classical scholar and psychical researcher F. W. H. Myers (1843-1901) shows how Wordsworth's profound imagination and thought characterised and shaped his literary era. He discusses the influence of Wordsworth's upbringing and love for the natural world on works such as The Excursion, and The Prelude, which are said to have marked the transition from neoclassicism to Romanticism. Showing Wordsworth to be widely respected as 'so much besides a poet', Myers describes the circumstances in which Wordsworth accepted the Laureateship in 1843, an apparent surrender to 'the establishment' which poets such as Robert Browning regarded as a betrayal of his own earlier radical idealism.

Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) came from a distinguished family of politicians, jurists and writers, and was the father of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. His literary career began with writing about his great passion, the Alps, and he became a noted author and critic, and the first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. He was a friend of John Morley (1838-1923), the general editor of English Men of Letters, who commissioned him to write three biographies for the first series, on Swift, Pope and Johnson. Stephen is very interested in the family connections and history of Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), the great satirist and moralist, and he blends direct sources with general conclusions in an informal style which makes the work (first published in 1882) of continuing interest today. Stephen's Sketches from Cambridge, published anonymously in 1865, is also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection.