John Churton Collins

John Churton Collins
Born	(1848-03-26)26 March 1848 Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, England
Died	15 September 1908(1908-09-15) (aged 60) Lowestoft, Suffolk, England
Alma mater	Balliol College

John Churton Collins (26 March 1848 – 15 September 1908) was a British literary critic.

Biography

Churton Collins was born at Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, England. From King Edward's School, Birmingham, he went to Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1872, and at once devoted himself to a literary career, as journalist, essayist and lecturer. His first book was a study of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1874), and later he edited various classical English writers, and published volumes on Bolingbroke and Voltaire in England (1886),[1] The Study of English Literature (1891),[2] a study of Dean Swift (1893), Essays and Studies (1895),[3] Ephemera Critica (1901), Essays in Poetry and Criticism (1905), and Rousseau and Voltaire (1908), his original essays being sharply controversial in tone, but full of knowledge.[4]

In 1904 he became professor of English literature at Birmingham University.[5] For many years he was a prominent University Extension lecturer, and a constant contributor to the principal reviews. On 15 September 1908 he was found dead in a ditch near Lowestoft, Suffolk, at which place he had been staying with a doctor for the benefit of his health. The circumstances necessitated the holding of an inquest, the verdict being that of accidental death.[4]

Criticism

Lord Tennyson, a target of Collins' pen,[6] referred to him as "a louse in the locks of literature".[7]

Works

• Bolingbroke: A Historical Study (1886).
• Illustrations of Tennyson (1891).
• The Study of English Literature (1891).
• Essays and Studies (1895).
• A Treasury of Minor British Poetry (1896).
• The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1900).
• Ephemera Critica (1901).
• Jonathan Swift, a Biographical and Critical Study (1902).
• Critical Essays and Literary Fragments (1903).
• Studies in Shakespeare (1904).
• Studies in Poetry and Criticism (1905).
• 13 essays, most on 18th century poets, in Poets' Country, ed. Andrew Lang (1907).
• Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau in England (1908).[8]
• Greek Influence on English Poetry (1910).
• Life and Memoirs of John Churton Collins (1911).
• The Posthumous Essays of John Churton Collins (1912).

References

1. Courtney, W. P. (10 July 1886). "Review of Bolingbroke, a Historical Study; and Voltaire in England by John Churton Collins". The Academy. 30 (740): 19.
2. Ryland, F. (12 December 1891). "Review of The Study of English Literature by John Churton Collins". The Academy. 40 (1023): 529–530.
3. Walker, Hugh (23 November 1895). "Review of Essays and Studies by John Churton Collins". The Academy. 48 (1229): 427–428.
4. Chisholm 1911.
5. "COLLINS, John Churton". Who's Who. Vol. 59. 1907. p. 365.
6. Kearney, Anthony (1992). "Making Tennyson a Classic: Churton Collins' 'Illustrations of Tennyson' in Context". Victorian Poetry. 30 (1): 75–82.
7. Berlin, Isaiah (12 April 1987). "Edmund Wilson Among the 'Despicable English'". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 June 2012.
8. Buckingham, James Silk; Sterling, John; Maurice, Frederick Denison; Stebbing, Henry; Dilke, Charles Wentworth; Hervey, Thomas Kibble; Dixon, William Hepworth; MacColl, Norman; Rendall, Vernon Horace; Murry, John Middleton (18 April 1908). "Review: Voltaire, Montesquieu and Rousseau in England by J. Churton Collins". The Athenaeum. No. 4199. p. 471.

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Collins, John Churton". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 692.

Further reading

• Kearney, Anthony (1981). "John Churton Collins and the Attempt to Link English and Classics". British Journal of Educational Studies. 29 (3): 258–267. doi:10.2307/3119935. JSTOR 3119935.
• Kearney, Anthony (1986). John Churton Collins: the Louse on the Locks of Literature. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press.
• Theobald, Robert M. (1904). The Ethics of Criticism, Illustrated by Mr. Churton Collins. London: Watts & Co.

External links

• Works by John Churton Collins at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about John Churton Collins at the Internet Archive
• Works by John Churton Collins at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• The Diary Junction Blog