Andrew Lang (March 31, 1844, Selkirk – July 20, 1912, Banchory, Kincardineshire) was a prolific Scots man of letters. He was a poet, novelist, and literary critic, and contributor to anthropology. He now is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales.
The Andrew Lang lectures at St Andrews University are named for him.
Lang was the eldest of the eight children of John Lang, town clerk of Selkirk, and his wife, Jane Plenderleath Sellar, daughter of Patrick Sellar, factor to the first duke of Sutherland. On April 17, 1875 he married Leonora Blanche Alleyne, youngest daughter of C. T. Alleyne of Clifton and Barbados. They had no children.
He was educated at Selkirk grammar school, and at the Edinburgh Academy, St Andrews University and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a first class in the final classical schools in 1868, becoming a fellow and subsequently honorary fellow of Merton College. As a journalist, poet, critic and historian, he soon made a reputation as one of the ablest and most versatile writers of the day.
He died of angina pectoris at the Tor-na-Coille Hotel in Banchory, survived by his wife. He was buried in the cathedral precincts at St Andrews.
Lang is now chiefly known for his publications on folklore, mythology, and religion. The earliest of his publications is Custom and Myth (1884). In Myth, Ritual and Religion (1887) he explained the "irrational" elements of mythology as survivals from more primitive forms. Lang's Making of Religion was heavily influenced by the 18th century idea of the "noble savage": in it, he maintained the existence of high spiritual ideas among so-called "savage" races, drawing parallels with the contemporary interest in occult phenomena in England. His Blue Fairy Book (1889) was a beautifully produced and illustrated edition of fairy tales that has become a classic. This was followed by many other collections of fairy tales, collectively known as Andrew Lang's Fairy Books. Lang examined the origins of totemism in Social Origins (1903). |
