author
G. G. (Gustavus George) Zerffi
1820–1892
A restless 19th-century life took him from revolutionary politics and journalism in Hungary to a long career in Britain writing about history, art, religion, and ideas. His books have the feel of a Victorian scholar who never lost interest in big questions.
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About the author
Born in Hungary in 1820, Gustavus George Zerffi first made his name as a journalist and political activist. During the revolutions of 1848 he was involved in Hungarian public life, and after the collapse of the uprising he eventually settled in Britain, where he rebuilt his career in a very different intellectual world.
In England he became known as a lecturer and writer on history and art. He taught in connection with the National Art Training School at South Kensington and published a wide range of books, including studies of art history, historiography, religion, philosophy, and folklore. That mix of subjects helps explain why his work can feel both scholarly and wide-ranging.
Zerffi died in 1892 in Chiswick, London. Today he is remembered less as a single-purpose specialist than as a vivid Victorian man of letters whose writing grew out of journalism, exile, politics, and a lasting fascination with culture and belief.