George Edward Bateman Saintsbury (October 23, 1845 - January 28, 1933), was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
writer and critic.
Born in
SouthamptonSouthampton is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, he was educated at
King's College SchoolKing's College School in Wimbledon, south-west London, commonly referred to as King's, KCS or KCS Wimbledon, is a leading selective independent day school for pupils of high academic abilities...
, London, and at
Merton College, OxfordMerton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
(B.A., 1868), and spent six years in
GuernseyThe Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Crown Dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.As well as the island of Guernsey itself, it also includes Alderney, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou, Burhou, Lihou, Sark and other islets. Although the defence of all these islands is the...
as senior classical master of
Elizabeth CollegeElizabeth College is an independent school in the town of St Peter Port, Guernsey, founded in 1563 under the orders of Queen Elizabeth I- History :...
. From 1874 to 1876 he was headmaster of the Elgin Educational Institute. He began his literary career in 1875 as a
criticThe word critic comes from the Greek , "able to discern", which in turn derives from the word , meaning a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation, or observation...
for the Academy, and for ten years was actively engaged in
journalismJournalism is the craft of conveying news, descriptive material and comment via a widening spectrum of media. These include newspapers, magazines, radio and television, the internet and even, more recently, the mobile phone...
, becoming an important member of the staff of the
Saturday Review.
George Edward Bateman Saintsbury (October 23, 1845 - January 28, 1933), was an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
writer and critic.
Biography
Born in
SouthamptonSouthampton is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, he was educated at
King's College SchoolKing's College School in Wimbledon, south-west London, commonly referred to as King's, KCS or KCS Wimbledon, is a leading selective independent day school for pupils of high academic abilities...
, London, and at
Merton College, OxfordMerton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
(B.A., 1868), and spent six years in
GuernseyThe Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Crown Dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.As well as the island of Guernsey itself, it also includes Alderney, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou, Burhou, Lihou, Sark and other islets. Although the defence of all these islands is the...
as senior classical master of
Elizabeth CollegeElizabeth College is an independent school in the town of St Peter Port, Guernsey, founded in 1563 under the orders of Queen Elizabeth I- History :...
. From 1874 to 1876 he was headmaster of the Elgin Educational Institute. He began his literary career in 1875 as a
criticThe word critic comes from the Greek , "able to discern", which in turn derives from the word , meaning a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation, or observation...
for the Academy, and for ten years was actively engaged in
journalismJournalism is the craft of conveying news, descriptive material and comment via a widening spectrum of media. These include newspapers, magazines, radio and television, the internet and even, more recently, the mobile phone...
, becoming an important member of the staff of the
Saturday Review. Some of the critical essays contributed to the literary journals were afterwards collected in his
Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 (2 vols., 1890-1895),
Essays on French Novelists (1891),
Miscellaneous Essays (1892),
Corrected Impressions (1895).
In 1895 he became professor of
rhetoricRhetoric is one of the arts of using language as a means to persuade. Along with grammar and logic or dialectic, rhetoric is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. From ancient Greece to the late 19th Century, it was a central part of Western education, filling the need to train public...
and English literature at the
University of EdinburghThe University of Edinburgh founded in 1582, is an internationally renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. It is the sixth university to be established in the British Isles, making it one of the ancient universities of the United Kingdom.The university is amongst the...
, a position he held until 1915. He died in Bath, Somerset.
Literary criticism
His first book,
A Primer of French Literature (1880), and his
Short History of French Literature (1882), were followed by a series of editions of French classics and of books and articles on the history of
French literatureFrench literature is, generally speaking, literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak other traditional non-French languages. Literature written by citizens of other nations such as...
, which made him the most prominent English authority on the subject. His studies in English literature were no less comprehensive, and included the valuable revision of Sir
Walter ScottSir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a prolific Scottish historical novelist and poet, popular throughout Europe during his time....
's edition of
John DrydenJohn Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who dominated the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden.-Early life:Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle...
's
Works (Edinburgh, 18 vols., 1882-1893), Dryden (1881) in the "English Men of Letters" series,
History of Elizabethan Literature (1887),
History of Nineteenth Century Literature (1896),
A Short History of English Literature (1898, 3rd ed. 1903), an edition of the
Minor Caroline Poets of the Caroline Period (2 vols., 1905-1906), a collection of rare poems of great value, and editions of English classics. He coined the term "
JaneiteThe term Janeite has been both embraced by devotees of the works of Jane Austen as well as used as a term of opprobrium. According to Austen scholar Claudia Johnson Janeitism is "the self-consciously idolatrous enthusiasm for 'Jane' and every detail relative to her".Janeitism did not begin until...
" for a fan of
Jane AustenJane Austen was an English novelist, whose realism, biting social commentary and use of free indirect speech, have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in English literature....
in his introduction to a 1894 edition of
Pride and PrejudicePride and Prejudice is a novel by Jane Austen. First published on 28 January 1813, it was her second published novel. Its manuscript was initially written between 1796 and 1797 in Steventon, Hampshire, where Austen lived in the rectory...
.
At the turn of the century, Saintsbury edited and introduced an English edition of
Honoré de BalzacHonoré de Balzac was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of almost 100 novels and plays collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1815.Due to his keen observation of detail...
's novel series
La Comédie humaineLa Comédie humaine is the title of Honoré de Balzac's multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy .-Overview:...
. He went on to edit the series of "Periods of European Literature," contributing the volumes on
The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (1897), and
The Earlier Renaissance (1901). He subsequently produced some of his most important works,
A History of Criticism (3 vols., 1900-1904), with the companion volume
Loci Critici, Passages Illustrative of Critical Theory and Practice (Boston, U.S.A., and London, 1903), and
A History of English Prosody from the 12th Century to the Present Day (i., 1906; ii., 1908; iii., 1910); also
The Later Nineteenth Century (1909).
Wine
Although Saintsbury was best known as a scholar during his lifetime, he is perhaps best remembered today for his
Notes on a Cellar-Book (1920), one of the great testimonials to drink and drinking in wine literature. When he was close to death, André Simon arranged a dinner in his honour. Although Saintsbury did not attend, this was the start of the Saintsbury Club, men of letters and members of the wine trade who continue to have dinners to this day.