A family in the reading room
Born in Lichfield in 1835, Garnett was the son of a philologist who worked in the British Museum’s department of printed books. After his father died, the younger Garnett entered the museum as a teenager. He served as superintendent of the Reading Room before becoming Keeper of Printed Books.
His correspondence reveals a literary career carried on alongside the library work. Letters exchanged with the poet Mathilde Blind span decades. He translated poetry, wrote literary biographies and dealt with publishers including John Lane. The breadth of his reading became a resource for a form of fiction much shorter than a scholarly life.
An old punishment comes to an end
The Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales appeared from T. Fisher Unwin in 1888. In its opening story the eagle falls and Prometheus is suddenly free. Garnett sets the event in the fourth Christian century: a change in what people worship has altered the conditions of a story that once seemed to last for ever. The library holds the first edition, with a smaller selection than the expanded collection published in 1903.
