author
David Masson
1822–1907
Best known for a vast life of Milton, this Scottish critic and historian helped shape the study of English literature in Britain. He also stood out as a public supporter of women’s education and women’s suffrage.
4 Audiobooks
The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time
by David Masson
The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649 Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time
by David Masson
Edinburgh sketches & memories
by David Masson
About the author
Born in Aberdeen in 1822, David Mather Masson grew into one of the best-known literary scholars of Victorian Scotland. He studied at Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College, and later became a leading academic voice in English literature.
Masson taught English language and literature at University College London before moving to the University of Edinburgh, where he served as Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature from 1865 to 1895. Alongside his academic work, he was known as a literary critic, historian, and an outspoken supporter of women’s access to higher education.
His best-known work is the multi-volume The Life of John Milton, a major scholarly project that occupied him for decades. He also wrote British Novelists and their Styles and a biography of William Drummond of Hawthornden. Masson died in 1907, and his name was later honored by Edinburgh’s Masson Hall of Residence.