Andrew Lang

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Andrew Lang

Lang in 1888
Lang in 1888
Born(1844-03-31)31 March 1844
Selkirk, Selkirkshire, Scotland
Died20 July 1912(1912-07-20) (aged 68)
Banchory, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Occupation
  • Poet
  • novelist
  • literary critic
  • anthropologist
Alma mater
Period19th century
GenreChildren's literature
Spouse
(m. 1875)

Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews
are named after him.

Biography

Lang was born in 1844 in

He was educated at Selkirk Grammar School, Loretto School, and the Edinburgh Academy, as well as the University of St Andrews and Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a first class in the final classical schools in 1868, becoming a fellow and subsequently honorary fellow of Merton College.[2] He soon made a reputation as one of the most able and versatile writers of the day as a journalist, poet, critic, and historian.[3] He was a member of the Order of the White Rose, a Neo-Jacobite society which attracted many writers and artists in the 1890s and 1900s.[4] In 1906, he was elected FBA.[5]

He died of

angina pectoris on 20 July 1912 at the Tor-na-Coille Hotel in Banchory, Banchory
, survived by his wife. He was buried in the cathedral precincts at St Andrews, where a monument can be visited in the south-east corner of the 19th century section.

Scholarship

Folklore and anthropology

"Rumpelstiltskin", by Henry Justice Ford from Lang's Fairy Tales

Lang is now chiefly known for his publications on

E. B. Tylor.[6]

The earliest of his publications is Custom and Myth (1884). In

totemism
in Social Origins (1903).

Psychical research

Lang was one of the founders of "psychical research" and his other writings on anthropology include The Book of Dreams and Ghosts (1897), Magic and Religion (1901) and The Secret of the Totem (1905).[3] He served as president of the Society for Psychical Research in 1911.[10]

Lang extensively cited nineteenth- and twentieth-century European spiritualism to challenge the idea of his teacher, Tylor, that belief in spirits and animism were inherently irrational. Lang used Tylor's work and his own psychical research in an effort to posit an anthropological critique of materialism.[11] Andrew Lang fiercely debated with his Folklore Society colleague Edward Clodd over 'Psycho-folklore' a strand of the discipline which aimed to connect folklore with psychical research.[12]

Classical scholarship

He collaborated with

S. H. Butcher in a prose translation (1879) of Homer's Odyssey, and with E. Myers and Walter Leaf in a prose version (1883) of the Iliad, both still noted for their archaic but attractive style. He was a Homeric scholar of conservative views.[3] Other works include Homer and the Study of Greek found in Essays in Little (1891), Homer and the Epic (1893); a prose translation of The Homeric Hymns (1899), with literary and mythological essays in which he draws parallels between Greek myths and other mythologies; Homer and his Age (1906); and "Homer and Anthropology" (1908).[13]

Historian

Andrew Lang at work

Lang's writings on Scottish history are characterised by a scholarly care for detail, a piquant literary style, and a gift for disentangling complicated questions. The Mystery of Mary Stuart (1901) was a consideration of the fresh light thrown on Mary, Queen of Scots, by the Lennox manuscripts in the University Library, Cambridge, approving of her and criticising her accusers.[3]

He also wrote monographs on The Portraits and Jewels of Mary Stuart (1906) and

Man in the Iron Mask, collects twelve papers on historical mysteries, and A Monk of Fife (1896) is a fictitious narrative purporting to be written by a young Scot in France in 1429–1431.[3]

Other writings

Lang's earliest publication was a volume of metrical experiments, The Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872), and this was followed at intervals by other volumes of dainty verse, Ballades in Blue China (1880, enlarged edition, 1888), Ballads and Verses Vain (1884), selected by Mr Austin Dobson; Rhymes à la Mode (1884), Grass of Parnassus (1888), Ban and Arrière Ban (1894), New Collected Rhymes (1905).[3] His 1890 collection, Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody, contains letters combining characters from different sources, in what is now known as a crossover, including one based on Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre – an early example of a published derivative work based on Austen.[14]

Lang was active as a journalist in various ways, ranging from sparkling "leaders" for the Daily News to miscellaneous articles for the Morning Post, and for many years he was literary editor of Longman's Magazine; no critic was in more request, whether for occasional articles and introductions to new editions or as editor of dainty reprints.[3]

He edited The Poems and Songs of

Sir Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh. Lang discussed literary subjects with the same humour and acidity that marked his criticism of fellow folklorists, in Books and Bookmen (1886), Letters to Dead Authors (1886), Letters on Literature (1889), etc.[3]

Works

To 1884

Blue plaque, 1 Marloes Road, Kensington, London
Water Fairy, image from The Princess Nobody (1884), illustrated by Richard Doyle, engraved and coloured by Edmund Evans

1885–1889

  • That Very Mab (1885) with May Kendall
  • Books and Bookmen (1886)
  • Letters to Dead Authors (1886)
  • In the Wrong Paradise (1886) stories
  • The Mark of Cain (1886) novel
  • Lines on the inaugural meeting of the Shelley Society. Reprinted for private distribution from the Saturday Review of 13 March 1886 and edited by Thomas Wise (1886)
  • La Mythologie Traduit de L'Anglais par Léon Léon Parmentier. Avec une préface par Charles Michel et des Additions de l'auteur. (1886) Never published as a complete book in English, although there was a Polish translation. The first 170 pages is a translation of the article in the 'Encyclopædia Britannica'. The rest is a combination of articles and material from 'Custom and Myth'.
  • Almae matres (1887)
  • He (1887 with Walter Herries Pollock) parody
  • Aucassin and Nicolette
    (1887)
  • Myth, Ritual and Religion (2 vols., 1887)[16]
  • Johnny Nut and the Golden Goose. Done into English from the French of Charles Deulin (1887)
  • Grass of Parnassus. Rhymes old and new. (1888)
  • Perrault's Popular Tales (1888)
  • Gold of Fairnilee (1888)
  • Pictures at Play or Dialogues of the Galleries (1888) with
    W. E. Henley
  • Prince Prigio (1889)
  • The Blue Fairy Book (1889) (illustrations by Henry J. Ford
    )
  • Letters on Literature (1889)
  • Lost Leaders (1889)
  • Ode to Golf and Ballade of the Royal Game of Golf. Contribution to On the Links; being Golfing Stories by various hands (1889)
  • The Dead Leman and other tales from the French (1889) translator with Paul Sylvester

1890–1899

The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Longman Green & co., London 1898
  • The Red Fairy Book
    (1890)
  • The World's Desire (1890) with H. Rider Haggard
  • Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody (1890)
  • The Strife of Love in a Dream, Being the Elizabethan Version of the First Book of the Hypnerotomachia of Francesco Colonna (1890)
  • The Life, Letters and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh (1890)
  • Etudes traditionnistes (1890)
  • How to Fail in Literature (1890)
  • The Blue Poetry Book (1891)
  • Essays in Little (1891)
  • On Calais Sands (1891)
  • Angling Sketches (1891)
  • The Green Fairy Book
    (1892)
  • The Library with a Chapter on Modern English Illustrated Books (1892) with Austin Dobson
  • William Young Sellar (1892)
  • The True Story Book (1893)
  • Homer and the Epic (1893)
  • Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia (1893)
  • Waverley Novels (by Walter Scott), 48 volumes (1893) editor
  • St. Andrews (1893)
  • Montezuma's Daughter (1893) with H. Rider Haggard
  • Kirk's Secret Commonwealth (1893)
  • The Tercentenary of Izaak Walton (1893)
  • The Yellow Fairy Book
    (1894)
  • Ban and Arrière Ban (1894)
  • Cock Lane and Common-Sense (1894)
  • Memoir of R. F. Murray (1894)
  • The Red True Story Book (1895)
  • My Own Fairy Book (1895)
  • A Monk of Fife (1895)
  • The Voices of Jeanne D'Arc (1895)
  • The Animal Story Book (1896)
  • The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (1896) editor
  • The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart (1896) two volumes
  • Pickle the Spy; or the Incognito of Charles, (1897)
  • The Nursery Rhyme Book (1897)
  • The Miracles of Madame Saint Katherine of Fierbois (1897) translator
  • The Pink Fairy Book
    (1897)
  • A Book of Dreams and Ghosts (1897)
  • Pickle the Spy (1897)
  • Modern Mythology. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1897. Retrieved 20 February 2019 – via Internet Archive.
  • The Companions of Pickle (1898)
  • The Arabian Nights
    Entertainments
    (1898)
  • The Making of Religion (1898)
  • Selections from Coleridge (1898)
  • Waiting on the Glesca Train (1898)
  • The Red Book of Animal Stories (1899)
  • Parson Kelly (1899) Co-written with A. E. W. Mason
  • The Homeric Hymns (1899) translator
  • The Works of Charles Dickens in Thirty-four Volumes (1899) editor

1900–1909

  • The Grey Fairy Book
    (1900)
  • Prince Charles Edward (1900)
  • Parson Kelly (1900)
  • The Poems and Ballads of Sir Walter Scott, Bart (1900) editor
  • A History of Scotland – From the Roman Occupation (1900–1907) four volumes[17]
  • Notes and Names in Books (1900)
  • Alfred Tennyson (1901)
  • Magic and Religion (1901)
  • Adventures Among Books (1901)
  • The Crimson Fairy Book
    (1903)
  • The Mystery of Mary Stuart (1901, new and revised ed., 1904)
  • The Book of Romance (1902)
  • The Disentanglers (1902)
  • James VI and the Gowrie Mystery (1902)
  • Notre-Dame of Paris (1902) translator
  • The Young Ruthvens (1902)
  • The Gowrie Conspiracy: the Confessions of Sprott (1902) editor
  • The Violet Fairy Book
    (1901)
  • Lyrics (1903)
  • Social England Illustrated (1903) editor
  • The Story of the Golden Fleece (1903)
  • The Valet's Tragedy (1903)
  • Social Origins (1903) with Primal Law by James Jasper Atkinson[18]
  • The Snowman and Other Fairy Stories (1903)
  • Stella Fregelius: A Tale of Three Destinies (1903) with H. Rider Haggard
  • The Brown Fairy Book
    (1904)
  • Historical Mysteries (1904)
  • The Secret of the Totem (1905)
  • New Collected Rhymes (1905)
  • John Knox and the Reformation (1905)
  • The Puzzle of Dickens's Last Plot (1905)
  • The Clyde Mystery. A Study in Forgeries and Folklore (1905)
  • Adventures among Books (1905)
  • Homer and His Age (1906)
  • The Red Romance Book (1906)
  • The Orange Fairy Book
    (1906)
  • The Portraits and Jewels of Mary Stuart (1906)
  • Life of Sir Walter Scott (1906)
  • The Story of Joan of Arc[19] (1906)
  • New and Old Letters to Dead Authors (1906)
  • Tales of a Fairy Court (1907)
  • The Olive Fairy Book
    (1907)
  • Poets' Country (1907) editor, with
    Michael Macmillan
  • The King over the Water (1907)
  • Tales of Troy and Greece (1907)
  • The Origins of Religion (1908) essays
  • The Book of Princes and Princesses (1908)
  • Origins of Terms of Human Relationships (1908)
  • Select Poems of Jean Ingelow (1908) editor
  • The Maid of France, being the story of the life and death of Jeanne d'Arc (1908)
  • Three Poets of French Bohemia (1908)
  • The Red Book of Heroes (1909)
  • The Marvellous Musician and Other Stories (1909)
  • Sir George Mackenzie King's Advocate, of Rosehaugh, His Life and Times (1909)

1910–1912

  • The Lilac Fairy Book
    (1910)
  • Does Ridicule Kill? (1910)
  • Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy (1910)
  • The World of Homer (1910)
  • The All Sorts of Stories Book (1911)
  • Ballades and Rhymes (1911)
  • Method in the Study of Totemism (1911)
  • A Short History of Scotland (1911)
  • The Book of Saints and Heroes (1912)
  • Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown (1912)
  • A History of English Literature (1912)
  • In Praise of Frugality (1912)
  • Ode on a Distant Memory of Jane Eyre (1912)
  • Ode to the Opening Century (1912)

Posthumous

  • Highways and Byways in The Border (1913) with John Lang
  • The Strange Story Book (1913) with Mrs. Lang
  • The Poetical Works (1923) edited by Mrs. Lang, four volumes
  • Old Friends Among the Fairies: Puss in Boots and Other Stories. Chosen from the Fairy Books (1926)
  • Tartan Tales From Andrew Lang (1928) edited by Bertha L. Gunterman
  • From Omar Khayyam (1935)

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books

Lang selected and edited 25 collections of stories that were published annually, beginning with The Blue Fairy Book in 1889 and ending with The Strange Story Book in 1913. They are sometimes called

Andrew Lang's Fairy Books
although the Blue Fairy Book and other Coloured Fairy Books are only 12 in the series. In this chronological list the Coloured Fairy Books alone are numbered.

  • (1)
    The Blue Fairy Book
    (1889)
  • (2)
    The Red Fairy Book
    (1890)
  • The Blue Poetry Book (1891)
  • (3)
    The Green Fairy Book
    (1892)
  • The True Story Book (1893)
  • (4)
    The Yellow Fairy Book
    (1894)
  • The Red True Story Book (1895)
  • The Animal Story Book (1896)
  • (5)
    The Pink Fairy Book
    (1897)
  • The Arabian Nights' Entertainments (1898)
  • The Red Book of Animal Stories (1899)
  • (6)
    The Grey Fairy Book
    (1900)
  • (7)
    The Violet Fairy Book
    (1901)
  • The Book of Romance (1902)
  • (8)
    The Crimson Fairy Book
    (1903)
  • (9)
    The Brown Fairy Book
    (1904)
  • The Red Romance Book (1905)
  • (10)
    The Orange Fairy Book
    (1906)
  • (11)
    The Olive Fairy Book
    (1907)
  • The Book of Princes and Princesses (1908)
  • The Red Book of Heroes (1909)
  • (12)
    The Lilac Fairy Book
    (1910)
  • The All Sorts of Stories Book (1911)
  • The Book of Saints and Heroes (1912)
  • The Strange Story Book (1913)

References

  1. ^ Lang, Leonora Blanche Alleyne (1894). Andrew Lang (ed.). The Yellow Fairy Book. Longmans, Green & Co. p. 1. Retrieved 26 October 2013.
  2. ^ Levens, R.G.C., ed. (1964). Merton College Register 1900–1964. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 6.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainChisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lang, Andrew". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 171.
  4. .
  5. ^ "LANG, Andrew". Who's Who. 59: 1016. 1907.
  6. John Wyon Burrow, Evolution and Society: a study in Victorian social theory (1966), p. 237; Google Books
    .
  7. .
  8. .
  9. ^ The Lilac Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. 9 February 2009. Retrieved 16 January 2014 – via Project Gutenberg.
  10. .
  11. ^ Bihet, Francesca (2019) Late-Victorian Folklore Studies and Fairy-Lore. In: Betwixt and Between, 18–19 May 2019, Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Boscastle. http://eprints.chi.ac.uk/4685/
  12. ^ Andrew Lang, "Homer and Anthropology," in Homer and the Classics: Six Lectures Delivered before the University of Oxford by Arthur J. Evans, Andrew Lang, Gilbert Murray, F.B. Jevons, J.L. Myres, and W. Warde Fowler, ed. R.R. Marett, 44-65 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1908).
  13. Project MUSE 76001
  14. ^ Waters, Grant M.. Dictionary of British Artists, Working 1900–1950, (Eastbourne Fine Art, Eastbourne, 1975), p. 59
  15. ^ "Review of Myth, Ritual, and Religion by Andrew Lang, 2 vols". The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science, and Art. 64 (1671): 640–641. 5 November 1887.
  16. ^ Buckingham, James Silk; Sterling, John; Maurice, Frederick Denison; Stebbing, Henry; Dilke, Charles Wentworth; Hervey, Thomas Kibble; Dixon, William Hepworth; MacColl, Norman; Rendall, Vernon Horace; Murry, John Middleton (21 April 1900). "Review of vol. I of A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation by Andrew Lang". The Athenæum (3782): 487–488.
  17. ^ "Review of Social Origins by Andrew Lang—Primal Law by J. J. Atkinson". The Athenaeum (3947): 775–776. 20 June 1903.
  18. ^ The Story of Joan of Arc — The Maid of Orleans. By Andrew Lang. Pictures by John Jellicoe. McLoughlin Brothers, New York, 1906. — 97 p. Online: 1, Project Gutenberg; 2, Internet Archive

Relevant literature

  • de Cocq, Antonius P. L. (1968) Andrew Lang: A nineteenth century anthropologist (Diss. Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands). Tilburg: Zwijsen.
  • Demoor, Marysa. (1983) Andrew Lang (1844-1912) : late victorian humanist and journalistic critic with a descriptive checklist of the Lang letters. Vols. 1–2. RUG. Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte.
  • Demoor, Marysa (1987). Andrew Lang’s Letters to Edmund Gosse: The Record of a Fruitful Collaboration as Poets, Critics, and Biographers. The Review of English Studies, 38(152), 492–509.
  • Lang, Andrew.(1989) “Friends over the Ocean: Andrew Lang’s American Correspondents, 1881-1921.” Edited by Marysa Demoor. Werken / Uitgegeven Door de Faculteit van de Letteren En Wijsbegegeerte, Rijksuniversiteit. Gent: Universa.
  • Lang, Andrew. (1990)Dear Stevenson: Letters from Andrew Lang to Robert Louis Stevenson with Five Letters from Stevenson to Lang. Edited by Marysa Demoor. Leuven: Peeters.
  • Green, Roger Lancelyn. (1946) Andrew Lang: A critical biography with a short-title bibliography. Leicester: Ward.
  • Lang, Andrew. 2015. The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Selected Writings of Andrew Lang, Volume I. Edited by Andrew Teverson, Alexandra Warwick, and Leigh Wilson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 456 pages. (hard cover).
  • Lang, Andrew. 2015. The Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Selected Writings of Andrew Lang, Volume II. Edited by Andrew Teverson, Alexandra Warwick, and Leigh Wilson. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 416 pages. (hard cover).

External links

Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by President of the Society for Psychical Research
1911
Succeeded by