The Academy

Lang began “writing regularly for The Academy” in 1874. Marysa Demoor notes in Dear Stevenson, “As early as May 9, 1874, he announced [Stevenson’s] ‘Ordered South’ as ‘an article of curious depth and finish’ in his regular literary column for the Academy” (4). In 1877, Lang contributed letters about the founding of a Folk-Lore Society on the first and fifteenth of December (Edinburgh Critical Edition of the Selected Writings of Andrew Lang, vol. 1 46). (The Folk-Lore Society was founded in 1878.)

Lang also wrote many reviews for The Academy: Roger Lancelyn Green writes in his critical biography of Lang that there are “86 Book Reviews [in the Academy] between 10th January 1870 and 11th June 1887″ (254). These include Lang’s signed review of She (15 Jan. 1887, pp. 35–36), the only official review that Lang wrote of Haggard’s most famous novel. When Haggard asked Lang if he could dedicate She to him, Lang thanked him but also stated, ‘If you do, I shan’t be able to review it, except with my name signed thereto and my honest confession. Probably I could do that in the Academy’ (qtd. in Higgins, Rider Haggard, 104).

The Academy is digitized in British Periodicals, and the Curran Index has recently put great efforts into making a list of work from The Academy, including Lang’s, as evidenced by Gary Simon’s post from June 2019:

“Judging from the correspondence of the “bookmen” of the 1870s and 1880s, the Academy vied with the Saturday Review and the Athenaeum as an influential weekly review of literary works.  Articles in the Academy were generally signed; however, these articles are, in a sense, “unknown knowns.”  It is easy to determine the contributor behind any specific review, but difficult to determine, for example, the list of review articles by Andrew Lang, or Edmund Gosse, or William Ernest Henley.  In order to better represent the individual bibliographies of these and other eminent bookmen some 600 reviews from the years 1874-1888 have been entered into the Curran Index.”
I have not yet integrated Lang’s Academy articles identified by the Curran Index with those identified by earlier scholars, but, until I can do the list more justice, I will first paste Curran Index entries, followed by previously identified articles.
Curran Index
  1. Current Novels (Academy, 1874)
  2. Poems by Robert Bridges (Academy, 1874)
  3. On Viol and Flute by E. W. Gosse (Academy, 1874)
  4. Jupiter’s Daughter / Broken Bonds / ‘Twixt Cup and Lip / Thorpe Regis (Academy, 1874)
  5. The Life of Charles Dickens Vol III by John Foster (Academy, 1874)
  6. Historie du Romantisme par Theophile Gautier (Academy, 1874)
  7. The French Humourists from the Twelth to the Nineteenth Century by Walter Besant (Academy, 1874)
  8. Out of Court / No Alternative / Annals of the Twenty-Ninth Century / Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow [novels] (Academy, 1874)
  9. Sketches in Italy and Greece by J. A. Symonds (Academy, 1874)
  10. Contes due Roi Gambrinus par Charles Deulin (Academy, 1874)
  11. Droll Stories from the Abbeys of Touraine (Academy, 1874)
  12. New Novels (Academy, 1874)
  13. Hours in a Library by Leslie Stephen (Academy, 1874)
  14. Fifty Protestant Ballads by M. F. Tupper (Academy, 1874)
  15. New Novels (Academy, 1874)
  16. Voyage d’Espagne (Academy, 1874)
  17. New Novels (Academy, 1874)
  18. Les Chansons Joyeuses (Academy, 1874)
  19. Gerald and His Friend the Doctor (Academy, 1874)
  20. Le Peuple Romain, d’apres ses Chants Nationaux (Academy, 1874)
  21. Livingstone in Africa (Academy, 1874)
  22. Les Chants Populaires Bulgares (Academy, 1874)
  23. New Novels (Academy, 1874)
  24. Diary of H. M. the Shah of Persia (Academy, 1874)
  25. New Novels (Academy, 1874)
  26. Premiers Lundis Vol I by Sainte-Beuve (Academy, 1874)
  27. The Life of H. R. H. the Prince Consort by Theodore Martin (Academy, 1875)
  28. New Novels (Academy, 1875)
  29. New Novels (Academy, 1875)
  30. New Novels (Academy, 1875)
  31. New Novels (Academy, 1875)
  32. The Better Self by Hain Friswell (Academy, 1875)
  33. Glimpses of the Supernatural (Academy, 1875)
  34. Essays Aesthetical (Academy, 1875)
  35. New Novels (Academy, 1875)
  36. New Novels (Academy, 1875)
  37. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy (Academy, 1875)
  38. New Novels (includes Gabriel Conroy by Bret Harte) (Academy, 1876)
  39. New Novels (Academy, 1876)
  40. The Mechanism of Man by E. W. Cox (Academy, 1876)
  41. Chansons Populares Bulgares (Academy, 1876)
  42. Pidgin English Sing-Song by C. G. Leland (Academy, 1876)
  43. New Novels (Academy, 1876)
  44. Alfred in Athelney / Poetical Works of Laman Blanchard (Academy, 1876)
  45. Italy Revisited by A. Gallenga (Academy, 1876)
  46. New Novels (Academy, 1876)
  47. England, Literary and Social, from a German Point of View (Academy, 1876)
  48. The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll (Academy, 1876)
  49. The Devil’s Chain by E. Jenkins (Academy, 1876)
  50. Stray Studies from England and Italy by J. R. Green (Academy, 1876)
  51. New Novels (Academy, 1876)
  52. Bishop Callaway’s Stories (a letter) (Academy, 1877)
  53. Poems by E. Dowden (Academy, 1877)
  54. Essays and Reviews by the late H. H. Lancaster (Academy, 1877)
  55. New Novels (Academy, 1877)
  56. New Novels (Academy, 1877)
  57. Contes Populaires de Grande-Bretagne pars Loys Bruyere (Academy, 1877)
  58. Untitled letter on Folk-Lore Society (Academy, 1877)
  59. History and Poetry of the Scottish Border by Professor Veitch (Academy, 1878)
  60. “The Politics” (a letter) (Academy, 1878)
  61. More Glimpses of the World Unseen (Academy, 1878)
  62. The “Rassenga Settimanale” (Academy, 1878)
  63. Professor Max Müller on Homer (a letter) (Academy, 1878)
  64. Modern Frenchmen. Five Biographies by P. G. Hamerton (Academy, 1878)
  65. Quinet’s Letters to his Mother (Academy, 1878)
  66. A Handful of Honeysuckles by Mary F. Robinson (Academy, 1878)
  67. Greek Folklore. Griechische Marchen, Sagen, and Volks Lieder by Schmidt (Academy, 1878)
  68. French Bibliomania. (Academy, 1878)
  69. Fairy Tales: their Origin and Meaning by John Thackray Bunce (Academy, 1878)
  70. New Facts about Molière (Academy, 1878)
  71. Demonology and Devil-Lore by Moncure Daniel Conway (Academy, 1879)
  72. Bismarck in the Franco-German War (Academy, 1879)
  73. Mr. Mahaffy, Mr. Paley, and the Age of Homer (a letter) (Academy, 1879)
  74. La Mythologie des Plantes, ou, Les Legendes de Regne Vegetal (Academy, 1879)
  75. Three Books of French Folk-Lore (Academy, 1879)
  76. Recent Works on Moliere (Academy, 1879)
  77. Rabelais by Walter Besant (Academy, 1879)
  78. Les Rois en Exil by Alphonse Daudet (Academy, 1879)
  79. Poems by W. H. Mallock (Academy, 1880)
  80. “Cendreusette” The Mentonese Variant of Cendrillon, or Cinderella (Academy, 1880)
  81. The Poet and the Muse by W. H. Pollock (Academy, 1881)
  82. Remarks on Professor Mahaffey’s Account of the Rise and Progress of Epic Poetry by F. A. Paley (Academy, 1881)
  83. Australian and Greek Mysteries (a letter) (Academy, 1881)
  84. Introduction to Mythology and Folk-lore by G. W. Cox (Academy, 1881)
  85. Kaffir Folk Tales (Academy, 1882)
  86. Hottentot Mythology (a letter) (Academy, 1882)
  87. Reville’s Savage Religions (Academy, 1883)
  88. The Anthropologist (a letter) (Academy, 1883)
  89. “The Tale of Troy” (Academy, 1883)
  90. Iron in Early Greece (a letter) (Academy, 1883)
  91. Comparative Mythology (a letter) (Academy, 1883)
  92. Original Verse. The Barborous Bird-Gods{ a Savage Parabasis (Academy, 1883)
  93. The Anthropologist and Ancient Literature (a letter) (Academy, 1883)
  94. “Totems” and “Otems” (a letter) (Academy, 1884)
  95. Comparative Mythology (Academy, 1884)
  96. The Moon and the Hare (Academy, 1884)
  97. The Myth of Cronus (a letter) (Academy, 1884)
  98. The Genealogy of Myths (a letter) (Academy, 1884)
  99. The Myth of Cronus (a letter) (Academy, 1884)
  100. The Book of the Sword by Richard F.Burton (Academy, 1884)
  101. “Custom and Myth” (a letter) (Academy, 1885)
  102. The Merton Professorship (a letter) (Academy, 1885)
  103. “Custom and Myth” (a letter) (Academy, 1885)
  104. “Aditi” (a letter) (Academy, 1885)
  105. A Galloway Nursery Tale (a letter) (Academy, 1885)
  106. Myths and Household Tales (a letter) (Academy, 1885)
  107. Dr. Tiele and the Myth of Cronus (a letter) (Academy, 1886)
  108. The Great Hare (a letter) (Academy, 1886)
  109. Primitive Marriage in Bengal (a letter) (Academy, 1886)
  110. The Myth of Andromeda and Perseus (a letter) (Academy, 1887)
  111. “Books and Bookmen” (a letter) (Academy, 1887)
  112. She by H. Rider Haggard (Academy, 1887)
  113. Contes Populaires de Lorraine by Emmanuel Cosquin (Academy, 1887)
  114. The Metaphysics of so-called Savages [a letter] (Academy, 1888)
  115. The Myth of Cupid and Psyche [a letter] (Academy, 1888)
*************************************************************************************************
  • “Literature,” 9 May 1874, p. 505 (Demoor, Dear Stevenson, 32, f. 10).
  • “Letter: On Founding Folklore Society.” 1 Dec. 1877. [See also his letter of 15 Dec.] (RLG pp. 254–55)
  • “New Facts about Molière.” 20 Mar. 1878. (RLG)
  • “Max Müller on Homer.” 6 April 1878. (RLG)
  • “The Age of Homer.” 8 Mar. 1879. (RLG)
  • “Kaffir Folktales.” 9 Sep. 1882. (RLG)
  • “Anthropology and Ancient Literature.” 10 Mar. 1883. (RLG)
  • “Myths and Household Tales.” 7 Feb. 1885. (RLG)
  • “Letter: The Merton Professorship.” 20 June 1885. (RLG)
  • “The Great Hare (Anthropological).” 15 May 1886. (RLG)
  • [Review of Rider Haggard’s She. 15 Jan. 1887] (RLG)
  • “The Metaphysics of Savages.” 21 Jan. 1888. (RLG)
  • “Letter: Odysseus and Helen.” 13 Dec. 1890. (RLG)
  • “Letter: Odysseus and the Cyclops.” 10 Jan. 1891. (RLG)

B. Meredith Langstaff also notes contributions by Lang on 20 Jan. 1885, 9 May 1896, 2 Sep. 1899, and 1 Sep. 1900 and cites the review of Lang’s Books and Bookmen that appeared on 12 Feb. 1887.

Lang wrote a short letter to the Academy, “The Plot of Edwin Drood,” on 19 Aug. 1905, p. 862, where he corrects some of his own earlier statements on the subject.

David MacRitchie’s response to Lang’s comment on his work in “The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies” appears on pp. 74–75 of the Academy for 22 July 1893.

T. Hutchinson reviewed Lang’s The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart on 7 Nov. 1896, pp. 341–45.

Return to the list of periodicals to which Lang contributed.

This page was last updated on 16 Sep. 2022.