The Great Writers series was a collection of literary biographies published in London from 1887, by Walter Scott & Co. The founding editor was Eric Sutherland Robertson, followed by Frank T. Marzials.
The stated intention, articulated by Robertson, was that the series should constitute fact-based textbooks of English literature. He advocated analytical and scholarly methods of literary study. The works generally contained a bibliography, compiled by John Parker Anderson of the British Museum.s:The Times/1925/Obituary/Death of J. P. Anderson
A comparable French series also began publication in 1887, edited by Jean Jules Jusserand, under the title Les Grands Écrivains Français. Its inspiration was John Morley's English Men of Letters, published from 1880. Oscar Wilde called the Great Writers series "unfortunate", but suggested that Anderson's bibliographies were of value, and should be collected up. His dislike of the restrictions on authors extended also to the English Men of Letters. Other series in imitation of English Men of Letters were English Worthies (Longman) and Literary Lives (Hodder).Bernard Lightman, The Many Lives of Charles Darwin: Early Biographies and the Definitive Evolutionist, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London Vol. 64, No. 4 (20 December 2010), pp. 339–358. Published by: Royal Society. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25802124
YearSubjectAuthorComment1887Henry Wadsworth LongfellowEric Sutherland Robertson1887Samuel Taylor ColeridgeHall Caine"a sound and, within its scope, comprehensive volume"1887Charles DickensFrank T. Marzials1887Dante Gabriel RossettiJoseph Knight1887Samuel JohnsonFrancis Richard Charles Grants:The New International Encyclopædia/Johnson, Samuel (lexicographer) 1887Charles DarwinGeorge Thomas Bettany 1887Charlotte BrontëAugustine Birrell 1887Thomas CarlyleRichard Garnett 1887 Tobias George SmollettDavid Hannay1887Adam SmithRichard Haldane 1887John KeatsWilliam Michael Rossetti 1887Percy Bysshe ShelleyWilliam Sharp 1888Oliver GoldsmithAustin Dobson 1888Walter ScottCharles Duke Yonge 1888Robert BurnsJohn Stuart Blackie 1888Victor HugoFrank T. Marzials 1888Ralph Waldo EmersonRichard Garnett 1888Johann Wolfgang von GoetheJames Sime 1888William CongreveEdmund Gosse1888John BunyanEdmund Venables 1888George CrabbeThomas Edward Kebbel"Cheap, short and unsympathetic"1888Heinrich HeineWilliam Sharp 1889John Stuart MillW. L. Courtney"although not negligible, is of very minor importance"1889Friedrich SchillerHenry Woodd Nevinson1889Frederick MarryatDavid Hannay 1889Honoré de BalzacFrederick Wedmores:Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings/Preface1889Gotthold Ephraim LessingT. W. Rolleston 1890John MiltonRichard Garnett 1890George EliotOscar BrowningLargely criticism1890Jane Austen (1890)Goldwyn Smith"signifies the recognition of Austen as a standard classic author"1890Robert BrowningWilliam Sharp 1890Lord ByronRoden Noel 1890Nathaniel HawthorneMoncure Conway 1890Arthur SchopenhauerWilliam Wallace 1890Richard Brinsley SheridanLloyd C. Sanders 1890Henry ThoreauHenry Shakespear Stephens Saltrevised edition 18961891William Makepeace ThackerayHerman Charles Merivale and Frank Marzials 1891Miguel de CervantesHenry Edward Watts1892VoltaireFrancis EspinasseJohn Rylands Library page 1893James Leigh HuntCosmo Monkhouse"most careful, but not entirely sympathetic"1893John Greenleaf WhittierWilliam James Linton 1895Ernest RenanFrancis Espinasse
Two further lives from the same publisher, of John Ruskin (1910) by Ashmore Wingate, and of Maurice Maeterlinck (1913) by Jethro Bithell, do not conform to the pattern of the series.
Notes