Changes

1899.01.24

| left = 1912 deceased

1899.01.10 proposed<br /><br />two of this name - same?

Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scots poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.<br /><br />Member of the Athenaeum Club from 1883<br /><br />Born Selkirk; died Banchory.<br />Fellow of Merton College, Oxford 1868-75. Thereafter lived in London working as a writer. Prolific output in many fields including anthropology, history, classics and folklore. Honorary degrees from Oxford and St Andrews.<br /><br />He was only 17 when he joined the ESL in 1861 which was the year he went up to St Andrew’s. He spent three years there, then a year at Glasgow University before coming up to Balliol in 1865. He got a First in Classical Mods and then Lit Hum in 1868. The same year he was elected to an open fellowship at Merton. He stayed there until he married in 1875 when he moved to London. His undergraduate days at Balliol where contemporary with the existence of the Oxford Anthropological Society but we have no evidence that he was involved with it although it would seem odd if he did not, unless, of course, its connection with the ASL was sufficient to deter him. What we do know is that he engaged with another Oxford anthropologist, Max Müller. Lang criticised Müller’s philological theory of myth, in series of papers the first of which. ‘Mythology and fairy tales’ was published in 1873 while Lang was still at Merton. He became a Fellow of the AI and stayed one until his death. [Peter Riviere]<br /><br />