Henry Morley
Henry Morley (15 September 1822 – 1894) was one of the earliest professors of English literature. He was a dynamic lecturer and a prolific writer and editor.
Life
The son of an apothecary, he was born in Hatton Garden, London, educated at a Moravian school in Germany] and at King's College London, and after practicing medicine and keeping schools at various places, went in 1850 to London, and adopted literature as his profession.
He wrote in periodicals (including Household Words and All the Year Round for Charles Dickens), and from 1859–1864 edited The Examiner.
From 1865–89, he was professor of English literature at University College London, where among his pupils was Rabindranath Tagore. From 1882 to 1889, he was principal of University Hall,[1] as Arthur Hugh Clough had been a generation before. The building, on the west side of Gordon Square in the heart of Bloomsbury, at that time also housed Manchester New College, and is now the home of Dr Williams's Library.
He was the editor of two book series. Morley's Universal Library, drawing on the age-old concept of a universal library, was published from 1883 by George Routledge. Cassell's National Library was published from 1886, totalling 209 weekly editions.
His biography was written by Henry Shaen Solly, the son of prominent reformer Henry Solly.
Works
He was the author of various biographies, including of Bernard Palissy, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Gerolamo Cardano and Clément Marot. He also wrote introductions to two books written by John Locke—the 1884 edition of "Two Treatises of Government" and the 1889 edition of "A Letter Concerning Toleration".
His principal work, however, was English Writers (10 volumes 1864-94), coming down to William Shakespeare. His First Sketch of English Literature—the study for the larger work—had reached at his death a circulation of 34,000 copies.
References
- ^ J. R. Howard Roberts and Walter H. Godfrey (editors) (1949). "University Hall (Dr. Williams' Library), Gordon Square". Survey of London: volume 21: The parish of St Pancras part 3: Tottenham Court Road & neighbourhood. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 18 June 2012.
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External links
- Works by Henry Morley at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Henry Morley at Internet Archive
- Works by Henry Morley at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- 'The Life of Henry Morley' by Henry Shaen Solly
- Rhode Island College webpage on Morley
- Victorian Web page on Morley
- Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900 entry on Morley
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.
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