Author Description

Andrew Lang lived from 31 March 1844 to 20 July 1912. He was a prolific Scottish historian, translator, journalist, poet, writer, teacher, biographer and anthropologist. He is best remembered as a collector of folk and fairy tales: and a series of lectures at St Andrews University is named after him. The wider picture in Scotland at the time is set out in our Historical Timeline. Andrew was born in Selkirk as the oldest of eight children of the town clerk, John Lang, and his wife, Jane Plenderleath Sellar, daughter of Patrick Sellar, the infamous factor of the Sutherland estates responsible for some of the worst excesses of The Clearances. Andrew was educated at Selkirk grammar school, Edinburgh Academy, St Andrews University and Balliol College, Oxford. He later became a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and rapidly made his name as a highly able and versatile author, poet, critic, historian and journalist.