Henry Morley

Henry Morley (15 September 1822 – 1894) was one of the earliest professors of English literature. He was a dynamic lecturer and a prolific writer and editor.

The son of an apothecary, he was born in Hatton Garden, London, educated at a Moravian school in Germany] and at King's College London, and after practicing medicine and keeping schools at various places, went in 1850 to London, and adopted literature as his profession.

He wrote in periodicals (including Household Words and All the Year Round for Charles Dickens), and from 1859–1864 edited The Examiner.

From 1865–89, he was professor of English literature at University College London, where among his pupils was Rabindranath Tagore. From 1882 to 1889, he was principal of University Hall, as Arthur Hugh Clough had been a generation before. The building, on the west side of Gordon Square in the heart of Bloomsbury, at that time also housed Manchester New College, and is now the home of Dr Williams's Library.

He was the editor of two book series. Morley's Universal Library, drawing on the age-old concept of a universal library, was published from 1883 by George Routledge. Cassell's National Library was published from 1886, totalling 209 weekly editions.

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