Sabine Baring-gould

Jacquetta (Dodo Press) Sabine Baring-gould

The Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) was an English hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist and eclectic scholar. A prolific author, his bibliography lists over 1240 separate publications. He is particularly remembered as a writer of hymns, the best-known being Onward, Christian Soldiers and Now the Day is Over. He regarded as his principal achievement the collection of folk songs that he made with the help of the ordinary people of Devon and Cornwall, his first being Songs of the West (1889-91). He also wrote many novels, a collection of ghost stories and a 16-volume Lives of the Saints. His folkloric studies resulted in The Book of Were-Wolves (1865), one of the most frequently cited studies of lycanthropy. He is also thought to have inspired his friend George Bernard Shaw to write the play Pygmalion (1912), which was made into the musical, My Fair Lady.