author
Sir Adolphus William Ward
1837–1924
A leading Victorian historian and literary scholar, he helped shape how English history and literature were studied in universities. He is also remembered for major editorial projects that brought important reference works and literary histories to a wide audience.
3 Audiobooks
Chaucer
by Sir Adolphus William Ward
Dickens
by Sir Adolphus William Ward
The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian succession
by Sir Adolphus William Ward
About the author
Born in Hampstead in 1837, he was educated partly in Germany and later studied at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He went on to become an English historian, critic, and academic whose work linked literary study with historical scholarship.
Much of his career was spent at Owens College, Manchester, where he served as professor of history and English literature and later as principal. Alongside university life, he became known for large collaborative scholarly projects, including work on the Dictionary of National Biography and The Cambridge History of English Literature.
Ward was valued as both a historian and a man of letters, with interests that ranged across European history, English drama, and literary criticism. Knighted late in life, he died in 1924, leaving behind a body of work that reflects the serious but wide-ranging scholarship of his era.