Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) was a Scottish man of letters, born in Selkirk and educated at St Andrews and Oxford, who made his living in London as one of the most prolific journalists and critics of his day. He wrote poetry, novels, histories of Scotland, studies of Homer, and pioneering works on folklore and the anthropology of religion, including Magic and Religion, and translated the Odyssey and the Homeric Hymns. He is remembered above all for the twelve colored fairy books, beginning with The Blue Fairy Book in 1889, through which generations of children first met the tales of the Grimms, Perrault and the Arabian Nights.