Eric Sutherland Robertson

Eric Sutherland Robertson (1857 – 24 May 1926)[1][2] was a Scottish man of letters, academic in India, and clergyman.

Life edit

Robertson graduated at Edinburgh University in 1873 and then moved to London where he became a journalist.[2] Between 1880 and 1881 Robertson edited the Magazine of Art.[3] In 1882 he shared rooms at 18 Clement's Inn with his journalist friend Hall Caine, where they often hosted intellectual gatherings. They frequently had their evening meals delivered from nearby Clare Market, which were brought by two young women. Months later their father's confronted Robertson and Caine demanding marriage, claiming the young women had been ‘ruined’. According to Caine's biographer, nothing more than 'a bit of flirting' had taken place.[4] Robertson moved to Redhill, Chislehurst and wrote English Poetesses, published by Cassell in September 1883.

In 1884 Robertson acted as best man for his friend William Sharp.[5] He set up the Great Writers series, published from 1887.[6] At the same period he was appointed to Lahore Government College of the University of the Punjab, where he was Professor of English Literature and Philosophy.[3]

From 1896 Robertson was vicar of Bowness-on-Windermere.[7]

Works edit

  • English Poetesses: A Series of Critical Biographies (1883)[8]
  • Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1887)[8]
  • The Dreams of Christ, and Other Verses (1891)[8]
  • Wordsworth and the English Lake Country: An Introduction to a Poet's Country (1911)
  • The Bible's Prose Epic of Eve and her Sons: the 'J' Stories in Genesis
  • Wordsworthshire
  • From Alleys and Valleys[8]
  • The Human Bible: A Study in the Divine (1920)

Notes edit

  1. ^ "Eric Sutherland Robertson". Statutory Births 1855-2013. ScotlandsPeople. Archived from the original on 21 November 2008. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Distinguished St Andrews Resident Dead". Dundee Courier. 25 May 1926. Retrieved 23 March 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  3. ^ a b Roger W. Peattie (August 1986). Selected Letters of William Michael Rossetti. Penn State Press. p. 498 note 1. ISBN 0-271-02662-6.
  4. ^ Vivien Allen (1 July 1997). Hall Caine: Portrait of a Victorian Romancer. A&C Black. pp. 153–4. ISBN 978-1-85075-809-9.
  5. ^ Elizabeth Amelia Sharp (11 December 2014). William Sharp (Fiona Macleod): A Memoir Compiled by his wife Elizabeth A. Sharp. New York Duffield & Company. p. 66. GGKEY:CE1WA7HLC8Z.
  6. ^ George Alexander Kennedy; A. Walton Litz (10 August 2000). The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Volume 7, Modernism and the New Criticism. Cambridge University Press. p. 381. ISBN 978-0-521-30012-4.
  7. ^ "Bowness-on-Windermeer History & Genealogy Resources, Windermere, Westmorland". Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  8. ^ a b c d Frederick Wilse Bateson (1966). The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. CUP Archive. pp. 355–. GGKEY:SQT257C7TNL.

External links edit