Lang, Andrew

(1844-1912)

   The eldest son of John Lang, sheriff-clerk of Selkirkshire, Scotland, he was educated at the local grammar school, Edinburgh Academy, and St. Andrews University, and graduated literae humaniores from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1868. He held an open fellowship at Merton College, Oxford, until 1875, when he moved to London, where he was a journalist for nearly forty years. He wrote history books (including Scottish themes), novels and biographies, published prose translations of The Odyssey, and earned special praise for his 12-volume collection of fairy tales written between 1889 and 1893. He published translations of the Idylls of Theocritus (1880) and of the Homeric Hymns (1899). He died of a heart condition at Banchory, Aberdeenshire, and is buried in the cathedral precincts at St. Andrews. Some of his poetry publications: Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, 1872. Ballads in Blue China, 1880. Helen of Troy, 1882. Rhymes à la Mode, 1884. Grass of Parnassus, 1888. Ban and Arrière Ban, 1894. Some of his poems: "Brahma," "Clevedon Church," "Epistle to Mr. Alexander Pope," "Scythe Song," "To Lord Byron," "To the Gentle Reader," "Zimbabwe."

   Sources: A Book of Scottish Verse. Maurice Lindsay and R.L. Mackie, eds. St. Martin's Press, 1983. Book-Song. Gleeson White, ed. Elliot Stock, 1893. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: A Poetic Record, from Chaucer to Yeats. David Hopkins, ed. Routledge, 1990. Golden Numbers. Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith, eds. Doubleday, Doran, 1902. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Poems of South African History A.D. 1497-1910. A. Petrie, ed. Oxford University Press. 1918. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of Comic Verse. Michael Roberts and Janet Adam Smith, eds. Faber and Faber, 1978. The Home Book of Verse for Young Folks. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1929. The Home Book of Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1953. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.