3-070-510 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late Mr. James Spedding, 1881. 'The death of this gentleman, from injuries he received a week before through being knocked down by a cab in the street, took place on Wednesday of last week...[He] made some important contributions to English literary history, but more especially in his prolonged labours to produce a complete edition of Bacon's works, and to write the history of Bacon's life and times...Mr. Spedding not only determined the text, [of the of the "Novum Organum"] but illustrated it from his profound knowledge of the literature and history of Bacon's time. He set himself to write the life of his favourite author in a manner never before attempted. The "Life and Letters" of Bacon is the only book on the subject which furnishes all the materials for a complete judgment on many points of controversy. Every extant letter, every scrap of information, manuscript or printed, is collected, and Mr. Spedding leaves the life of Bacon to tell its own tale, only supplying the thread of comment necessary to string the collected material together. It is to Mr. Spedding that every future biographer must go for his materials'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.