Richard Garnett

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For the American Civil War general killed at Pickett's Charge, see Richard B. Garnett

Richard Garnett (February 27, 1835 – April 13, 1906) was a scholar, librarian, biographer and poet. He was son of Richard Garnett, an assistant keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum.

Born at Lichfield, and educated at a school in Bloomsbury, he entered the British Museum in 1851 as an assistant librarian. In 1875, he became superintendent of the Reading Room, in 1881, editor of the General Catalogue of Printed Books, and in 1890 until his retirement in 1899, Keeper of Printed Books.

His literary works include numerous translations from the Greek, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; several books of verse; the book of short stories The Twilight of the Gods (1888, 16 stories; 12 stories added in the 1903 edition); biographies of Thomas Carlyle, John Milton, William Blake, and others; The Age of Dryden (1895); a History of Italian Literature; English Literature: An Illustrated Record (with Edmund Gosse); and many articles for encyclopaedias and the Dictionary of National Biography. He also discovered and edited some unpublished poems of Shelley (Relics of Shelley, 1862). His poem "Where Corals Lie" was set to music by Sir Edward Elgar as part of Sea Pictures and was first performed in 1899.

The writer, critic and editor Edward Garnett was his son, the translator Constance Garnett was his daughter-in-law and the writer David Garnett was his grandson.