{"id":1623,"date":"2019-03-29T12:11:23","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T12:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/?p=1623"},"modified":"2019-05-09T16:24:11","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T15:24:11","slug":"anniversary-of-andrew-lang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/2019\/03\/29\/anniversary-of-andrew-lang\/","title":{"rendered":"Anniversary of Andrew Lang"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 31 marks the 175th anniversary of the birth of one of Scotland\u2019s most prolific and versatile writers, Andrew Lang <\/strong> (1844-1912). The author or co-author of 249 volumes, Lang worked in fields as varied as anthropology, folklore, classical scholarship, Scottish history, poetry, drama, and children\u2019s writing. As a perennially in-demand journalist, he also penned articles and reviews on an almost daily basis.<\/p>\n

At the Centre for Research Collections<\/a>, we hold a suitably diverse collection of 35 letters (Coll-732) from Andrew Lang to a number of literary and professional colleagues. The publications mentioned in these letters convey the full breadth of Lang\u2019s interests: controversially pro-Jacobite studies of Mary Queen of Scots and Charles Edward Stuart, translations from Homer, an epic poem on Helen of Troy, a history of Oxford University, a study of three French Romantic poets, and anthologies of ballads and folktales.<\/p>\n

Although many of the letters are brief and business-like, they provide a vivid glimpse into the daily labour of a Late Victorian professional writer. There are letters asking magazine editors what they pay contributors; thanking his literary agent Hughes Massie for a cheque; requesting transcripts of historical manuscripts held by the British Museum; offering advice to young authors; submitting work on behalf of prot\u00e9g\u00e9s; accepting or declining invitations to address clubs and societies; and turning down commissions when over-committed or short of inspiration.
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\nWhile few of Lang\u2019s correspondents are well-known today, there are references to distinguished literary friends. Lang writes to W. E. Henley that he is \u2018delighted\u2019 with the idea of Robert Louis Stevenson<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018voyage and travails with the Cuddy\u2019, i.e. his Travels with a Donkey in the C\u00e9vennes<\/em>. In a letter to Mark Twain<\/strong>\u2019s business manager Ralph W. Ashcroft, Lang expresses his readiness to hear more of a publishing plan proposed by Twain (to whom Lang refers as \u2018Mr Clemens\u2019, the writer\u2019s real name). There is further evidence of Lang\u2019s transatlantic interests in a letter accompanying a submission to the American children\u2019s magazine The Youth\u2019s Companion<\/em>, in which Lang begs the editor to return his article if he judges it to be \u2018of a corrupting tendency\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\t\t