author
Richard Garnett
1835–1906
A lifelong British Museum man who also found time to write poetry, biography, criticism, and curious imaginative tales, he moved easily between scholarship and literary play. His work helped shape Victorian literary culture while making the world of books feel lively and human.
7 Audiobooks
The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales
by Richard Garnett
William Blake, Painter and Poet
by Richard Garnett
Life of John Milton
by Richard Garnett
Tennyson
by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton, Richard Garnett
Essays in Librarianship and Bibliography
by Richard Garnett
A history of Italian literature
by Richard Garnett
The Age of Dryden
by Richard Garnett
About the author
Born in Lichfield, England, on February 27, 1835, Richard Garnett grew up in a deeply literary household and went on to spend most of his working life at the British Museum. He entered the museum as a young man and eventually became Keeper of Printed Books, a major post he held until his retirement in 1899. Alongside his library career, he built a reputation as a scholar, bibliographer, editor, biographer, poet, and essayist.
Garnett wrote across an unusually wide range of subjects. He produced literary criticism and biography, contributed to reference works, translated, and edited important collections, while also writing original poetry and short fiction. He is especially remembered for combining serious learning with wit and imagination, which gave even his more scholarly work a readable, approachable quality.
Later readers have often seen him as one of those Victorian figures who connected the worlds of librarianship and literature. His long service at the British Museum gave him extraordinary knowledge of books, but his writing shows more than expertise: it shows delight in reading itself. He died in London on April 13, 1906.