author
William Spalding
1809–1859
A Scottish man of letters who moved from law into literary criticism and teaching, he wrote with the broad curiosity of a nineteenth-century scholar. Best known for works on English literature and philosophy, he spent much of his career helping students think clearly and read closely.
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About the author
William Spalding was a Scottish writer, critic, and academic born in Aberdeen in 1809. He studied at the city's grammar school and at Marischal College, then moved to Edinburgh to train in law and was called to the bar in the 1830s. Even so, his lasting reputation comes less from legal work than from his writing and teaching.
He published on Shakespeare early in his career and went on to write essays, reviews, and historical and literary studies. He is especially associated with The History of English Literature and The Philosophy of Rhetoric, books that reflect his interest in how literature, language, and thought fit together.
For roughly the last two decades of his life, Spalding served as professor of rhetoric and logic, first at the University of St Andrews and later at the University of Edinburgh. That mix of criticism, history, and classroom teaching gives his work its character: learned, practical, and aimed at helping readers make sense of what they read.