Comprehensive information and links about Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang Born in Selkirk, Scotland (March 31, 1844 - July 20, 1912) was a prolific Scots man of letters. He was a poet, novelist, and literary critic, and contributor to anthropology. He now is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales.

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Education

He was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, St Andrews University and at 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. As a journalist, poet, critic and historian, he soon made a reputation as one of the ablest and most versatile writers of the day.

in 1899, with essays literary and mythological, in which parallels to the Greek myths are given from the traditions of savage races; and his Homer and his Age in 1906.

; no critic was in more request, whether for occasional articles and introductions to new editions or as editor of dainty reprints.

As historian

To the study of Scottish history Lang brought a scholarly care for detail, a piquant literary (1901, new and revised ed., 1904) was a consideration of the fresh light thrown on Mary's history by the Lennox manus in the University library, Cambridge, strengthening her case by restating the perfidy of her accusers.

He also wrote monographs on (1905) aroused considerable controversy. He gave new information about the continental career of the Young Pretender in (1897), an account of Alestair Ruadh MacDonnell, whom he identified with Pickle, a notorious Hanoverian spy. This was followed in 1898 by , and in 1900 by a monograph on Prince Charles Edward. In 1900 he began a History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation, the fourth volume of which (1907) brought Scottish history down to 1746. (1903), which takes its title from an essay on the "Man with the lron Mask," collects twelve papers on historical mysteries, and (1896Andrew Lang is a fictitious narrative purporting to be written by a young Scot in France in 1429-1431.

Folklore and anthropology

Lang's versatility was also shown in his works on folklore and on primitive religion. The earliest of these was (2 vols., 1887, French trans., 1896) he explained the irrational elements of mythology as survivals from earlier savagery; in (an idealization of savage animism) he maintained the existence of high spiritual ideas among savage races, and instituted comparisons between savage practices and the occult phenomena among civilized races; he dealt with the origins of totemism in

Psychic research

He was one of the founders of the study of "Psychical Research," and his other writings on anthropology include

Essayist

He carried the humour and sub-acidity of discrimination which marked his criticism of fellow folk-lorists into the discussion of purely literary subjects in his (1889), beautifully produced and illustrated, was followed annually at Christmas by a book of fairy tales and romances drawn from many sources.

The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche (1882) with William AldingtonThe Strife of Love in a Dream, Being the Elizabethan Version of the First Book of the Hypnerotomachia of Francesco Colonna (1890)Poets' Country (1907) editor, with Churton Collins, W. J. Loftie, E. Hartley Coleridge, Michael Macmillan