Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang

MIRACLE OF QURAN : ERROR OF THE UNILINEAR PROGRESSIVE CONCEPT OF HISTORY

 

82- Do they not travel through the earth and see what was the end of those before them? They were greater in number than these and superior in strength and in the traces in the land: Yet all that they accomplished was of no profit to them.
40-The Believer, 82 [040 SURE GAFIR, V 82]

There are verses in the Quran that speak of certain communities in the past who had reached a level of civilization higher than the community in which the Prophet lived. These communities had been the authors of works far superior to those produced by the latter. Especially at the beginning of the 19th century, the "historical point of view" occupied an important place. Hegel (1770-1831) spoke of reality as a historical process that could be understood by the categories of historical explanation. His giving meaning to history, understanding and evaluating it were remarkable indeed. But Hegel interpreted history as a linear and evolutionary system that involved continuous and unilinear development. His approach was progressionist. His interpretation of history may be acclaimed, but a viewpoint that conceives every historical period superior to the one preceding it is untenable.

The Quran, an infallible book, proves once again that it is in the right. It acknowledges that past civilizations sometimes produced superior works and proved to be more powerful, thus refuting the linear concept of history. Linear development may have taken place in a given period of history. As a matter of fact, the advancement of science, whose origins went back to the 16th century, have followed a positive trend up until the 21st century. However, to generalize this progressive advancement to cover all of history and every domain would be a great mistake. While formulating his thesis, Hegel seems to have been bewitched by the advancement of sciences from the 16th century up until his own times.

There are more disastrous effects of this concept of history than the uninitiated may conceive. A glaring example is communism. Marx' materialistic interpretation of Hegel led to massacres in which millions of people succumbed and gave rise to both cold and hot wars. As a matter of fact, the share of this Hegelian concept of history in Marx's ideology is great. While Hegel evaluated history through metaphysics, Marx preferred to view history materialistically, calling his school "Historical Materialism."

HISTORICAL VIEW OF COMMUNISM

Marx had a progressionist-linear-historical view (Marx's emphases on the means of production and economics had had a great impact). This conception contended that a given community had to pass through stages, namely through feudalism, capitalism and socialism, before reaching communism. According to this conception, each of these stages would mark a higher degree of development than the previous one. Thus, the communist stage would be superior even to the modern one. The communists assumed that communism would be supreme bliss and the ultimate perfection in history. Moreover, this was a "scientifically established" view! Those who were against it were considered unscientific. The eventual collapse of communism discredited the Marxist conception of a scientific interpretation of history.

According to them, history's progressive course could not be forestalled, so that communism was the ultimate stage. Yet most of the school textbooks of today are under the influence of that concept of history whose fundamental logic is that of linear progress. There are no scientific data to justify the opinions that assert that man's ancestors were primitive hairy creatures as described in the books on anthropology. Engels himself, founder of modern communism along with Karl Marx, acknowledged this. On the assumption that men are fortuitous, he claims that the historical stages must be accepted. Describing the primitives as deprived of language, not even knowing how to kindle a fire, similar to hairy monkeys, would be an illusory account devoid of all scientific justification. There is no corroborative evidence to justify that men were first hunter-gatherers before they came to be acquainted with farming. The idea, which took for granted the fact that history was of a linear and progressionist makeup, led necessarily to the adoption of the new conviction that man's initial stage had been hunting and gathering, the simplest means of supplying food. The distinct periods of the past qualified as Stone Age, Bronze Age, etc., are also devoid of all scientific evidence.

Whenever such classifications are made, there come moments when gadgets are unearthed, which, in principle should not be dating from the age to which they are supposed to belong. Yet, writers of textbooks are loath to make any corrections therein.

PYRAMIDS, MARTIANS AND ACUPUNCTURE

According to the progressionist linear history conception, every one of the stages that human history has gone through is superior to the preceding one. This erroneous conception is inculcated into the brains of the majority of mankind. The supporters of this conception of history were nonplussed in the face of the superior characteristics of pyramids. The question has cropped up, inquiring into the mystery of the designers of pyramids, whether their authors might not have been Martians! The great Cheops pyramid at Giza, whose volume is about 2.515.000m3, is 147m high, the base measuring 230m. This structure required the quarrying of six million stones, their transportation, amassment and laying in a fashion likely to challenge long centuries to come.

The power coupled with skill of the Egyptians leaves us astounded. Mentalities shaped according to the erroneous conception of history fail somehow to conclude that architecture in ancient Egypt was at a very advanced stage. For those familiar with the Quranic verses, there is nothing to wonder at in this, since the Quran mentions of works of superior quality that were accomplished long ago.

9- Do they not travel through the earth and see what was the end of those before them? They were superior to them in strength, furrowed the earth and dwelt in it more than they...
30-The Romans, 9 [030 SURE AR-ROOM, V 9]

Acupuncture, practiced in China for more than 4,500 years, shows that at a given spot on the earth, people were in possession of anatomic knowledge more precise than we can believe. Acupuncture was the result of a thorough knowledge of the nervous system of the human body and of the distribution of electricity in the body. Someone convinced of history's linear; evolutionist and developmentalist structure cannot come forth claiming that it appears that the Chinese were more versed in the anatomy of the human body than the following generations. Otherwise this would lead people to attribute the discovery of such facts to the Martians, like certain writers! To try to understand history and give it meaning is certainly commendable. But to dare interpret all the periods of history in every geographical corner of the earth within a unilinear and progressionist concept of history is a great error frequently committed.

This understanding of history has been the source of views that denied the personalities of individuals. These views that idealize the "state" led the right-minded to fascism and leftist persons to communism. The cause of a great many disasters, this viewpoint favored the oppression of the individual by the state, refused to see the state at the service of its nationals as a superstructure created by man, and preferred to consider man as a servant of the state, in which he had an insignificant presence. For those who are not familiar with the philosophy of history, these considerations may seem overstatements. If we look closer at the process initiated by Hegel, we may observe that it played a role, on the one hand, in the emergence of Hitler, and at the same time, of Marx. According to this view, the direction of history cannot be diverted. According to this mentality, whether laudable or execrable, the acts people indulge in have no effect on the retrogressive or progressive courses in history. It is the "state" that plays the historical role, and the course of history cannot change its direction. The human element is absent here as well. The Quran contends that human acts have their consequences in the future development of communities and that many communities have perished because of the evil doings of their members. This view of life is one that saves man from being swept by the storms that have raged in history.

It is true that at certain periods of history mankind has marked significant progress by following a unilinear and progressive course. But
it is simply wrong to generalize this movement to cover the entire past. To view a period of two or three millennia from a similar angle would be incorrect. To call a given century before Christ the "Stone Age," thus generalizing it to cover the entirety of humanity would be improper. Great divergences between communities at a given age, lack of proper communication, and reasons that thwarted the political and cultural development of societies the world over made a simultaneous development of peoples around the earth impossible. Let us assume that one thousand years hence, archaeological excavations conducted with a view to having an insight into our level of civilization will give different results according to whether these excavations are made in New York or in a remote corner of Africa. While the one that generalizes his findings will conclude that there had been a progression in the history of mankind, the other, having recourse to the same method of ratiocination, will conclude that there had been retrogression.

Another error generally committed is the assumption that products of different domains like communications, arts, medicine, engineering, architecture, morals, farming are put hotchpotch in the same basket. The idea of progression in a given field must not be stretched to include other areas as well. Therefore, while history advances in certain fields, it may recede in others. The correct thing to do would be to adopt an analytical approach and pick up every single product separately and evaluate it accordingly, thus getting rid of the generalizations and facile deductions of the unilinear progressive and evolutionist concepts of history.

POSITIVISM AND RELIGION

Religion has been the field exposed to misconceptions to which the unilinear progressive conception of history led. Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was the prominent representative of this movement. Comte divided history into separate phases. He was confident that mankind would go through three phases before ending up in the system of philosophy to which he gave the name of positivism. In his historical study of the progress of the human mind, he discerned three phases: the theological, the metaphysical and the positive. Comte contended that the origins of the theological phase went as far back as fetishism, and that it was followed by polytheism, ending up with monotheism. In the ultimate phase, qualified "positive," he stated that science had taken the place of religion. He made use of this argument to condemn all religious orders and philosophical systems prior to his own positive system. While the other systems are "a series of primitive historical phases," his own system was "the most perfect ultimate phase."

In the whirlwind of his passion, he dared set up a positivistic religion. This pseudo-Christianity would have a large clerical organization with positivistic temples and positivistic clergy. Comte's efforts to show the monotheistic religions as but an interim phase in the series of historical periods are devoid of all scientific evidence and findings. Quite the reverse had been the case, since the Ebla tablets of ancient history discovered in 1975 bore monotheistic traces. Comte's views, utterly devoid of all tangible and convincing evidence, are taken for granted in many school textbooks. In every stage of history there has existed the idea of one God. Monotheism was opposed by the idolaters of the moon or the sun, or communists or positivists at different periods of history. All other beliefs have become calendar pages of history to be torn off, while the belief in one God abides forever.Those who fail to make a historical classification of religions having archeological findings have suggested the following train of thought: "Let us find the most primitive community on earth, for the oldest religion should be theirs, since it must have preserved its traditions."

Some of the supporters of this line of thought, devoid of all scientific foundation, took the tribe that worshipped natural phenomena as the most primitive of the communities on earth, and its religion, the most ancient. Those who considered the pygmies of monotheistic outlook contended that the primeval religion was monotheistic (Such a line of thought led naturally to different conclusions). This theory on religion, whose proponents have been Andrew Lang and P.W. Schmidt, has been very interesting. According to this theory, most of the religions of the world are but corrupted versions of monotheism. According to Schmidt, idolization of powers of nature is irrelevant, since in order that the powers of nature may be made into gods, one should already have the notion of "God." According to this view, the reason for the corruption of monotheistic religions and the emergence of polytheism is man's transforming, in time, of metaphors into identifications. The line of thought ran something like this. "God is Creator, He is like my mother." "God is the source of everything, He is like the earth." These metaphors have in time replaced the original conceptualization that came to be identified with a concrete image. Schmidt contended that one of the evidences of the fact that polytheistic religions' origins lay in monotheism was the fact that the idea of a primeval and all powerful divinity still survived.

The common characteristics of the Eble tablets, Egyptian mythology, and monotheistic religions of differing configurations support the idea that they originated from a single source, but underwent corruption for various reasons. The logical reasoning of Schmidt is more convincing. As a matter of fact, there is hardly anything in Comte deducible or defensible on the grounds of consistency to support the theory of a positivistic phase being the ultimate phase of human evolution. Anyway, based merely on written evidence, it is impossible to arrive at an identification of the primeval religion. But as I have pointed out, both the Ebla tablets dating from 3000 B.C. and the evidence provided by the historical times prove that the faith in one God has always existed. These tablets, in which the names Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Michael, David are mentioned as they figure in the Quran, and the Old and New Testaments, prove that monotheistic religions always existed.

47- Each community has a messenger ...
10-Jonah, 47 [10- Sure Yunus , V47]

About the Author

Nasir Pasha, 36 Years, B.E Electrical and Electronic, Loving Father, Husband, Author, Thinker, Reader, strongly believe peace is the only way to solve all problems of the world.

Who is Andrew Lang?

the author of The Tales of Greece and Troy
Better with his living years.
Better with his living years, and any diploma he had got.

Andrew Lang

1844-1912

Nationality: Scottish
Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002.
New Entry : 02/10/2000

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Awards
Career
Further Readings
Media Adaptations
Personal Information
Sidelights
Source Citation
Writings

"Sidelights"
Andrew Lang was a distinguished literary figure who enjoyed particular prominence in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when he published extensively on topics ranging from folklore to philosophy for a readership ranging from scholars to children. Lang was born in 1844 in Scotland, and in his youth he was educated at the Edinburgh Academy, where he became enthralled with the works of European and American writers, including Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In his youth Lang also developed a lifelong predilection for Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Later, at St. Andrews University, Lang commenced his own literary endeavors by cofounding St. Leonard's Magazine, which was devoted to the arts.

In 1864, three years after entering St. Andrews, Lang transferred to the University of Glasgow, where he distinguished himself as a promising scholar. In 1865 he won a scholarship to Oxford University, and three years later he received an open fellowship to Merton College. An impressive academic career appeared inevitable, but in 1872 Lang was compelled by a lung infection to halt his studies and recuperate in France for two winters. When he finally returned to Oxford, Lang was no longer interested in continuing his work in academia. In 1875, soon after leaving Oxford, he married and moved to London, where he determined to work as a journalist.

The prolific Lang readily found publication in both the London Daily News and the weekly Saturday Review. Soon American magazines were also printing his work, as were other prominent British weeklies, including Spectator. And when the Longmans publishing firm began producing its own magazine in 1882, Lang contributed the column "At the Sign of the Ship," which would continue until the publication's demise in 1905.

In his various writings Lang proved himself an engaging thinker with a wide-ranging knowledge and a keen sense of wit. His essays and newspaper pieces were recognized as incisive and sardonic, appealing to both the uneducated and the academically inclined. As Roger W. Calkins noted in his profile of Lang in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, "Lang's popularity suggests that his temperament and style were perfectly in tune with the widest audience of his age."

Lang's literary essays also showed him to have remained true to the same writers and genres--fairy tales, adventure--that had so engaged him in his youth. Among those who received Lang's favor were Robert Louis Stevenson, author of such classics as Treasure Island and Kidnapped, and H. Ridger Haggard, whose works include the adventure stories She and King Solomon's Mines. But some of the era's more distinguished writers--including Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, and Joseph Conrad--were less well received by Lang, and thus he is perceived today as an ultimately conservative critic.

By the mid-1880s Lang was also proving himself prolific and versatile as a writer of books. He had produced a collection of poetry in 1872, Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, and in the ensuing years he continued to create rhymed, metrically proper verse modeled after the French ballad. Calkins praised Ballads and Lyrics of Old France on these counts, noting that the poems "succeed through Lang's thorough knowledge of the French language and his delicate ear for intricate rhythms and meter." Then, in 1882, Lang wrote the epic Helen of Troy, which he considered his first major poetic work. This nostalgic piece failed to realize the accolades that Lang had anticipated and, perhaps as a reaction to that lack of acclaim, he never again attempted such ambitious verse. Calkins suggested that the epic suffered from Lang's wistful tone at the expense of the sensual elements of the legend. Lang's subsequent collections are judged to comprise conservative, somewhat unsubstantial poems which are consistently appealing without being particularly engaging.

Lang also produced several volumes of translation. Notable here is his collaboration with S. H. Butcher on an English-language rendering of Homer's Odyssey. This volume was long prized as the most distinguished English translation of Homer's epic. Lang independently translated other works by Greek authors such as Theocritus and Bion, then teamed with Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers on an English-language version of Homer's other epic, The Iliad. In addition, Lang translated The Homeric Hymns and produced such studies as Homer and the Epic and The World of Homer.

Among the more significant publications in Lang's body of work are his numerous collections of fairy tales. According to Calkins, it is these writings that will likely "outlast [Lang's] more serious productions." Notable here are twelve volumes he compiled with such titles as The Blue Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book, and The Green Fairy Book. The Blue Fairy Book consists of a variety of popular European tales, including those about such beloved characters as Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, and Snow White. By virtue of its representation of so many classic stories, The Blue Fairy Book is often considered a masterpiece in itself. For subsequent volumes Lang drew on his interest in folklore and collected tales from around the world, including less familiar ones from Native American tribes, Africa, China, Japan, Iceland, Australia, and India. Lang's collections proved to be phenomenally popular and generated a new interest in fairy tales in Victorian England.

Lang also published many volumes of nonfiction, including biographies and travel writings. Of particular distinction in these categories are Pickle the Spy, with which he offended his fellow Scots by affirming that the son of a Scottish nobleman had once spied for the British; and John Knox and the Reformation, where Lang characterized the Scottish religious leader as a manipulating egotist responsible for widespread repression in Scotland. Among Lang's other biographies are the literary profiles Alfred Tennyson and Sir Walter Scott. Lang also published The Maid of France, a biography of Joan of Arc in which he rationalized the religious figure's visions as occult and psychic phenomena. Lang wrote the book as a counterpoint to Anatole France's version of the saint's life. The American author Henry James wrote in a letter to Edmund Gosse that despite the book's "accomplishment, all the possession of detail, the sense of reality, the vision of the truths and processes of life, the light of experience and the finer sense of history," he still preferred the wisdom of France's version. In the preface to his Saint Joan; A Chronicle Play in Six Scenes and an Epilogue, the playwright (George) Bernard Shaw commented, "Andrew Lang and Mark Twain are equally determined to make Joan a beautiful and most ladylike Victorian; but both of them recognize and insist on her capacity for leadership, though the Scots scholar is less romantic about it than the Mississippi pilot."

Although, as Calkins noted, "he mastered many types of writing and excelled in them," Lang is best known as the editor of The Blue Fairy Book and the subsequent volumes in the Fairy Book series, collections that are recognized as rich contributions to children's literature. Roger Sale of Washington Post Book World attributed the success of Lang's series to "some alchemy of editorial genius and public taste," and added, "When I have used The Blue Fairy Book to teach fairy tales, the only students who protest are those who prefer a different Lang book." In Essays Presented to Charles Williams, J. R. R Tolkien wrote, "Andrew Lang's Fairy Books are . . . like stalls in a rummage-sale. Someone with a duster and a fair eye for things that retain some value has been round the attics and box-rooms."

PERSONAL INFORMATION
Family: Born March 31, 1844, in Selkirk, Scotland; died of angina pectoris, July 20, 1912, in Banchory, Aberdeen, Scotland; son of John (a county sheriff-clerk) and Jane Plenderleath (Sellar) Lang; married Lenora Blanche Alleyne (a writer), 1875. Education: Attended St. Andrews University, 1861-63, University of Glasgow, 1863-64, and Loretto School, Musselburgh, 1864; Balliol College, Oxford, B.A. (with honors), 1866. Memberships: Royal British Academy (fellow), Society for Psychical Research (founder; president, 1911), Athenaeum Club.

AWARDS
Open fellowship to Merton College, 1868; LL.D., St. Andrews University, 1888, and Oxford University, 1904.

CAREER
Writer. Merton College, Oxford, England, fellow, 1868-75; worked as a journalist beginning in 1875. Gifford Lecturer at St. Andrews University, 1888; Ford Lecturer at Oxford University, 1904. Cofounder of St. Leonard's Magazine.

WRITINGS BY THE AUTHOR:
FICTION

The Princess Nobody: A Tale of Fairy Land, illustrated by Richard Doyle, Longmans, Green, 1884.

(Under pseudonym A. Hugh Longway) Much Darker Days, Longmans, Green, 1884.

(With May Kendall) That Very Mab, Longmans, Green, 1885.

In the Wrong Paradise, and Other Stories, Kegan Paul, 1886.

The Mark of Cain, J. W. Arrowsmith, 1888.

The Gold of Fairnilee, illustrated by E. A. Lemann, J. W. Arrowsmith, 1888, expanded edition, Gollancz, 1967.

Prince Prigio (also see below), illustrated by Gordon F. Browne, J. W. Arrowsmith, 1889.

Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody, Longmans, Green, 1890.

(With H. Rider Haggard) The World's Desire, Longmans, Green, 1890.

Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia (also see below), illustrated by Browne, Longmans, Green, 1893.

My Own Fairy Book, illustrated by Browne and others, Longmans, Green, 1895.

A Monk of Fife: A Romance of the Days of Jeanne d'Arc, Longmans, Green, 1895.

(With Alfred Edward Woodley Mason) Parson Kelly, Longmans, Green, 1900.

The Disentanglers, Longmans, Green, 1901.

Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia [and] Prince Prigio, Dutton, 1961.

Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, Viking Press, 1981.

The Flying Ship, Morrow, 1995.

Also author of Twelve Dancing Princesses, 1966, 1980.

POETRY
Ballads and Lyrics of Old France, with Other Poems, Longmans, Green, 1872.
XXII Ballades in Blue China, Kegan Paul, 1880.
XXII and X: XXXII Ballades in Blue China, Kegan Paul, 1881.
Helen of Troy, G. Bell, 1882.
Ballades and Verses Vain, Scribner, 1884.
Rhymes a la Mode, Kegan Paul, 1885.
Grass of Parnassus: Rhymes Old and New, Longmans, Green, 1888.
Ban and Arriere Ban: A Rally of Fugitive Rhymes, Longmans, Green, 1894.
New Collected Poems, Longmans, Green, 1905.
CRITICISM AND ESSAYS
The Library, [London], 1876.
Letters on Literature, Longmans, Green, 1880.
Letters to Dead Authors, Scribner, 1886.
Books and Bookmen, G. I. Coombes, 1886.
Lost Leaders, Longmans, Green, 1889.
How to Fail in Literature, Field & Tuer, 1890.
Essays in Little, Henry & Co., 1891.
Homer and the Epic, Longmans, Green, 1893.
Adventures among Books, Longmans, Green, 1905.
The Puzzle of Dickens' Last Plot, Chapman & Hall, 1905.
Homer and His Age, Longmans, Green, 1906.
La Jeanne d'Arc de M. Anatole France, [Paris], 1909.
The World of Homer, Longmans, Green, 1910.
Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy, Longmans, Green, 1910.
History of English Literature from Beowulf to Swinburne, Longmans, Green, 1912.
Shakespeare, Bacon, and the Great Unknown, Longmans, Green, 1912.
BIOGRAPHY
Life, Letters, and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote, W. Blackwood, 1890.
The Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart, Scribner, 1897.
Prince Charles Edward, Goupil, 1900.
Alfred Tennyson, Dodd, 1901.
John Knox and the Reformation, Longmans, Green, 1905.
Sir Walter Scott, Scribner, 1906.
The Story of Joan of Arc (for children), Dutton, 1906.
The Maid of France, Being the Story of the Life and Death of Jeanne d'Arc, Longmans, Green, 1908.
Sir George Mackenzie: King's Advocate of Rosehaugh, Longmans, Green, 1909.
OTHER NONFICTION
Oxford: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes, Seeley Service, 1882.
Custom and Myth, Longmans, Green, 1884, revised edition, 1885.
Myth, Ritual, and Religion, two volumes, Longmans, Green, 1887.
(With William Ernest Henley) Pictures at Play; or, Dialogues of the Galleries, illustrated by Harris Furniss, Longmans, Green, 1888.
Angling Sketches, illustrated by William G. Burn-Murdoch, Longmans, Green, 1891.
St. Andrews, illustrated by T. Hodge, Longmans, Green, 1893.
Cock Lane and Common-Sense, Longmans, Green, 1894.
Pickle the Spy; or, The Incognito of Prince Charles, Longmans, Green, 1897.
Modern Mythology, Longmans, Green, 1897.
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts, Longmans, Green, 1897.
The Companions of Pickle, Longmans, Green, 1898.
The Making of Religion, Longmans, Green, 1898.
A History of Scotland, four volumes, W. Blackwood, 1900-07.
The Mystery of Mary Stuart, Longmans, Green, 1901.
Magic and Religion, Longmans, Green, 1901.
James VI and the Gowrie Mystery, Longmans, Green, 1902.
The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies, Longmans, Green, 1903.
Social Origins, Longmans, Green, 1903.
Historical Mysteries, Smith, Elder, 1904.
The Secret of the Totem, Longmans, Green, 1905.
The Clyde Mystery: A Study in Forgeries and Folklore, J. MacLehose, 1905.
Portraits and Jewels of Mary Stuart, J. MacLehose, 1906.
A Short History of Scotland, W. Blackwood, 1911.
(With John Lang) Highways and Byways in the Border, illustrated by Hugh Thomson, Macmillan, 1912.

Author of column "At the Sign of the Ship" for Longmans (magazine), 1882-1905. Contributor to periodicals, including London Daily News, Saturday Review, and Spectator.

EDITOR
English Worthies, nine volumes, Longmans, Green, 1885-87.
Ballads of Books, Longmans, Green, 1888.
Charles Perrault, Perrault's Popular Tales, Clarendon Press, 1888.
The Blue Fairy Book, illustrated by Henry Justice Ford and George Percy Jacombe-Hood, Longmans, Green, 1889.
The Red Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford and Lancelot Speed, Longmans, Green, 1890.
The Blue Poetry Book, illustrated by Ford and Speed, Longmans, Green, 1891.
The Green Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1892.
The True Story Book, illustrated by L. Bogle and others, Longmans, Green, 1893.
The Yellow Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1894.
The Red True Story Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1895.
Sir Walter Scott, Poetical Works, A. & C. Black, 1895.
The Animal Story Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1896.
The Blue True Story Book, illustrated by Ford and others, Longmans, Green, 1896.
The Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, Methuen, 1896.
Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler, Dent, 1896.
A Collection of Ballads, Chapman & Hall, 1897.
The Pink Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1897.
The Nursery Rhyme Book, illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke, Warne, 1897.
The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Longmans, Green, 1898.
The Red Book of Animal Stories, Longmans, Green, 1899.
The Grey Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1900.
The Violet Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1901.
The Book of Romance, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1902.
The Crimson Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1903.
The Brown Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1904.
The Red Romance Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1905.
The Orange Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1906.
The Olive Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1907.
Poets Country, illustrated by Francis S. Walker, T. C. & E. C. Jack, 1907.
Tales of a Fairy Court, illustrated by Arthur A. Dixon, Collins, 1907.
Tales of Troy and Greece, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1907.
Jean Ingelow, Poems, Longmans, Green, 1908.
Lenora B. Lang, The Book of Princes and Princesses, Longmans, Green, 1908.
L. B. Lang, The Red Book of Heroes, Longmans, Green, 1909.
The Lilac Fairy Book, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1910.
All Sorts of Stories, Longmans, Green, 1911.
L. B. Lang, The Book of Saints, illustrated by Ford, Longmans, Green, 1912.
James Annesley, The Annesley Case, W. Hodge, 1913.
L. B. Lang, The Strange Story Book, Longmans, Green, 1913.
J. B. Poquelin de Moliere, Les Precieuses ridicules, second edition, Clarendon Press, 1926.
King Arthur: Tales of the Round Table, Acme Books, 1968.
The Rainbow Fairy Book: A Selection of Outstanding Fairy Tales from The Color Fairy Books, Morrow, 1993.
A World of Fairy Tales, Dial Press, 1994.
Tales from King Arthur, NTC/Contemporary Publishing, 1998.

Also editor of The Story of Robin Hood and Other Tales of Adventure and Battle, 1968. Works reprinted in various editions, including many featuring the illustrations of other artists. Works also published in abridged versions, and tales from various volumes also published independently, sometimes with illustrations of other artists.

TRANSLATOR
(With Samuel Henry Butcher) Homer, The Odyssey, Macmillan, 1879.
Theocritus, Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, Macmillan, 1880.
(With Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers) Homer, The Iliad of Homer, Macmillan, 1883.
Aucassin and Nicolette, David Nutt, 1887, new edition published as The Song-Story of Aucassin and Nicolette, illustrated by Fritz Kredel, Gravesend Press, 1957.
Charles Deulin, Johnny Nut and the Golden Geese, Longmans, Green, 1887.
(With Paul Sylvester) The Dead Leman and Other Tales from the French, second edition, Swan, Sonnenschein, 1889.
The Miracles of Madame Saint Katherine of Fierbois, Way & Williams, 1897.
Homer, The Homeric Hymns, G. Allen, 1899.
CONTRIBUTOR
Allan G. Steel, editor, Cricket, Longmans, Green, 1890.
Horace G. Hutchinson, editor, Famous Golf Links, Longmans, Green, 1891.
R. Barclay, editor, A Batch of Golfing Papers, Simpkin, Marshall, 1892.
Hedley Peck, editor, The Poetry of Sports, Longmans, Green, 1896.
Peter H. Brown, editor, The Union of 1707: A Survey of Events, G. Outram, 1907.

MEDIA ADAPTATIONS
Recordings adapted from Lang's works include "Snow-White and Rose-Red," read by Glynis Johns, music by Dick Hyman, Caedmon Records, 1973; "Princess Rosette," Spoken Arts, 1974; "Little Wildrose, and Other Andrew Lang Fairy Tales," read by Cathleen Nesbitt, Caedmon Records, 1974; "Sinbad the Sailor and Other Stories," 1986; "Jason and the Golden Fleece" and "Travels of Ulysses," both 1992; and "Beauty and the Beast and Other Stories," 1993.

FURTHER READINGS ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
BOOKS

Demoor, Marysa, The Art of Biography: An Analysis of Two Contrasting Views, Studia Germanica Gandensia (Gent), 1986.

Demoor, Marysa, Friends Over the Ocean: Andrew Lang's American Correspondence, 1881-1912, Rijksuniverstiteit Gent, 1989.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Gale, Volume 98: Modern British Essayists, First Series, 1990, Volume 141: British Children's Writers, 1880-1914, 1994.

Essays Presented to Charles Williams, Oxford University Press, 1947.

Falconer, C. M., The Writings of Andrew Lang, M.A., LL.D., Norwood Editions (Norwood, PA), 1976.

Green, Roger Lancelyn, Andrew Lang: A Critical Biography, Edmund Ward, 1946.

Lang, Lockhart, and Biography, Norwood Editions, 1978.

Langstaff, Eleanor De Selms, Andrew Lang, Twayne Publishers (Boston, MA),1978.

The Letters of Henry James, Volume II, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920.

Ormerod, James, The Poetry of Andrew Lang, R. West (Philadelphia), 1978.

Reference Guide to English Literature, 2nd edition, St. James Press, 1991.

Shaw, George Bernard, Saint Joan: A Chronicle Play in Six Scenes and an Epilogue, Brentano's, 1926.

Something about the Author, Volume 16, Gale, 1979.

St. James Guide to Fantasy Writers, St. James Press, 1996.

Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, 4th edition, St. James Press, 1995.

Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, Volume 16, Gale, 1985.

PERIODICALS

New Statesman, November 7, 1975, p. 586; November 5, 1976, p. 645.

New York Review of Books, December 21, 1967, p. 20; December 17, 1970, p. 43.

New York Times Book Review, February 13, 1972, p. 8.

Observer, August 14, 1966, p. 16.

Times Literary Supplement, April 2, 1976, p. 396; July 7, 1978, p. 768; July 23, 1982, p. 795.

Washington Post Book World, December 2, 1979, p. 4; January 11, 1981, p. 7; August 5, 1990, p. 15.*

andrew lang