Henry Duff Traill

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Henry Duff Traill
Born(1842-08-14)14 August 1842
London, England
EducationSt John's College, Oxford
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • editor
  • author

Henry Duff Traill (14 August 1842 – 21 February 1900) was a British writer and journalist.[1]

Life

Born at Blackheath, he belonged to an old Caithness family, the Traills of Rattar, and his father, James Traill, was the stipendiary magistrate of Greenwich and Woolwich Police Court. He was sent to the Merchant Taylors' School, where he rose to be head of the school and obtained a scholarship at St John's College, Oxford. Initially destined for the profession of medicine, Traill took his degree in natural sciences in 1865 but then he read for the bar and was called in 1869. In 1871 he received an appointment as an Inspector of Returns for the Board of Education, a position which left him leisure to cultivate his gift for literature.[2]

In 1873 he became a contributor to the

Saturday Review, to which he sent, among other writings, weekly verses upon subjects of the hour. Some of the best of these he republished in 1882 in a volume called Recaptured Rhymes, and others in a later collection of Saturday Songs (1890).[2]

He was also a leader-writer for the

Daily Telegraph and edited The Observer from 1889 until 1891, which experienced an increase in circulation during his time there.[3] In 1897, he became first editor of Literature, when that weekly paper (afterwards sold and incorporated with the Academy) was established by the proprietors of The Times, and directed its fortunes until his death.[2]

Traill's long connection with journalism must not obscure the fact that he was a man of letters rather than a journalist. He wrote best when he wrote with least sense of the burden of responsibility. His playful humour and his ready wit were given full scope only when he was writing to please himself. One of his most brilliant jeux d'esprit was a pamphlet which was published without his name soon after he had begun to write for the newspapers. It was called The Israelitish Question and the Comments of the Canaan Journals thereon (1876). This told the story of the

Robert Hichens he wrote The Medicine Man, produced at the Lyceum in 1898. He died in London on 21 February 1900.[4]

He also edited the Centenary edition of the Works of

Chapman and Hall, 1896-1907), writing introductions to the various works.[citation needed
]

Works

  • Sterne (1882)
  • Recaptured Rhymes (1882)
  • The New Lucian (1884)
  • Coleridge (1884)
  • Shaftesbury (1886)
  • William III (1888)
  • Strafford (1889)
  • Saturday Songs (1890)
  • The Marquis of Salisbury (1890)
  • Number Twenty: Fables and Fantasies (1892)
  • The Life of Sir John Franklin, R.N. (1896)
  • The new fiction, and other essays on literary subjects (1897)

Notes

  1. ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1901). "Traill, Henry Duff" . Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. ^ a b c Chisholm 1911, p. 155.
  3. ^ "Henry Duff Traill Dead" (PDF). The New York Times. 22 February 1900.
  4. ^ Chisholm 1911, pp. 155–156.

References

External links
Media offices
Preceded by Editor of The Observer
1889 - 1891 		Succeeded by
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