James Anthony Froude Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on James Anthony Froude

James Anthony Froude, historian of the English Reformation, is also well known as the friend and biographer of Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle. In addition to the Carlyle volumes, in the last sixteen years of his life Froude wrote well-received biographies of Benjamin Disraeli, Desiderius Erasmus, Martin Luther, Julius Caesar, John Bunyan, and Thomas Becket; he also produced biographical sketches of Robert Burns, Francis Bacon, Henry VIII, and many other figures from English history. His early historical works received mixed reactions in his own time: he was praised for his fluid writing style but criticized for careless errors and oversights. Later critics often appraised Froude on moral and theological grounds, rather than on the basis of historical accuracy and argument. His friends, including Thomas Carlyle, strongly supported his works, all of which stemmed from extensive original research. Although Froude's histories are read today primarily as clear representations of the Whig historical tradition and its biases, his biographies are read because of the fullness of the portraits that Froude drew.

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