Educated at King's College, London and Merton College, Oxford, Saintsbury became a classical master at Elizabeth College on Guernsey after graduating in 1868. He spent six years there before becoming the headmaster of the Elgin Educational Institute in 1874. When the Institute failed in 1876, Saintsbury decided to concentrate on writing. Initially acting as a critic for the Saturday Review, his essays were later collected into volumes of criticism. In 1880, he published his first book, A Primer of French Literature. A Prolific writer, Saintsbury produced numerous volumes of criticism in addition to biographies of literary figures and editorial work. In 1895, he was appointed professor of rhetoric at the University of Edinburgh and continued there until his retirement in 1915. He was also a connoisseur of wine and in 1920 published his highly regarded Notes on a Cellar Book. His other works include A Short History of French Literature (1882), A History of Elizabethan Literature (1887), Essays on French Novelists (1891), Corrected Impressions (1895), Sir Walter Scott (1897), Matthew Arnold (1899), A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe from the Earliest Texts to the Present Day (1900-1904), Loci Critici: Passages illustrative of Critical Theory and Practice (1903), Historical Manual of English Prosody (1910) and Minor Poets of the Caroline Period (1921). |
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