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Andrew Lang was born at Selkirk in 1844, and was educated at Edinburgh Academy, at St. Andrews University, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a classical first-class, and was elected Fellow of Merton College in 1868. Choosing a literary career, or marked by literature for her own, he soon became one of the busiest as well as the brightest writers in the world of London journalism, and one of the most versatile and many-sided of English bookmen. He treats the most varied subjects with the same light, humorous touch, and he touches nothing which he does not adorn. He often expounds very serious and heart-felt convictions in a sprightly, airy, or even paradoxical manner, and in controversy contrives playfully to deal quick and deft and heavy strokes. He took a foremost part in the long debate with Professor Max Müller and his school about the interpretation of mythology and folk-tales, and it may safely be said that to his brilliant polemic fell most of the honours of the field. He was made LL.D. of St Andrews in 1885, and in 1888 was elected the first Gifford lecturer at that university. His poetical work included Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872), Ballades in Blue China (1880), Helen of Troy (1882), Rhymes a. la Mode (1884), Grass of Parnassus (1888; largely a new edition of Ballads and Lyrics), and Ballades of Books (1888).
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