Born in Edinburgh on 3 March 1835, he was the elder son of George Rae and his wife, Catherine Fraser, both of Edinburgh. After education at Moffat Academy and Heidelberg University, he entered Lincoln's Inn as a student on 2 November 1857, and on 30 April 1861 was called to the bar. But he then gave up the law for a career as a journalist.[1]
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian, it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.
Moffat Academy is a school in Moffat, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It educates children from nursery to Secondary 6. It consistently ranks amongst the top schools in Scotland.
Heidelberg University is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest university and one of the world's oldest surviving universities. It was the third university established in the Holy Roman Empire.
Rae edited for a time about 1860 The Reader, and early joined the staff of the Daily News, sympathetic to its liberal politics, as a special correspondent in Canada and the United States. Throat trouble led him to spend time at Austrian health resorts.[1]
The Daily News was a national daily newspaper in the United Kingdom.
In his last years Rae felt his lack of recognition. He reviewed for The Athenæum, whose editor Norman MacColl was a close friend, and spent his time mainly at the Reform Club; he had joined in 1860, and was chairman of the library committee from 1873 till his death. He died on 21 January 1905 at 13 South Parade, Bath, Somerset, and was buried at Bath.[1]
Norman MacColl (1843–1904) was a Scottish man of letters, known as a Hispanist and editor of the Athenæum.
The Reform Club is a private members' club on the south side of Pall Mall in central London, England. As with all of London's original gentlemen's clubs, it comprised an all-male membership for decades, but it was the first to change its rules to include the admission of women on equal terms in 1981. Since its founding in 1836, the Reform Club has been the traditional home for those committed to progressive political ideas, with its membership initially consisting of Radicals and Whigs. However, it is no longer associated with any particular political party, and it now serves a purely social function.
Bath is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Somerset, England, known for its Roman-built baths. In 2011, the population was 88,859. Bath is in the valley of the River Avon, 97 miles (156 km) west of London and 11 miles (18 km) south-east of Bristol. The city became a World Heritage site in 1987.
Works
On his articles for the Daily News, Rae based the volume Westward by Rail (1870; 3rd edit. 1874), sequel Columbia and Canada: Notes on the Great Republic and the New Dominion (1877). There subsequently appeared Newfoundland to Manitoba (1881; with maps) and Facts about Manitoba (1882); reprinted articles from The Times, the source also for Austrian Health Resorts, and the Bitter Waters of Hungary (1888; 2nd edit. 1889). In The Business of Travel (1891) he described the methods of Thomas Cook & Son, the travel agents, and a visit produced Egypt to-day; the First to the Third Khedive (1892).[1]
The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, itself wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times do not share editorial staff, were founded independently, and have only had common ownership since 1967.
Thomas Cook & Son, originally simply Thomas Cook, was a company founded by Thomas Cook, a cabinet-maker, in 1841 to carry temperance supporters by railway between the cities of Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Birmingham. It was succeeded by Thomas Cook AG after being sold to a German company in 2001, but since 2007 the descendant company is Thomas Cook Group plc.
Rae saw success as the translator of Edmond About's Handbook of Social Economy (1872; 2nd edit. 1885) and Hippolyte Taine's Notes on England (1873; 8th edit. 1885). Taking up English political history of the 18th century, in 1874 he brought outWilkes, Sheridan, and Fox: or the Opposition under George III, which echoed the style of Thomas Babington Macaulay. On the question of the identity of Junius, he wroteoften in The Athenæum from 1888, for over the decade: with Charles Wentworth Dilke and the Athenæum tradition, he rejected the identification of Junius with Sir Philip Francis.[1]
Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate with him. Taine is also remembered for his attempts to provide a scientific account of literature.
Junius was the pseudonym of a writer who contributed a series of political letters critical of the government of King George III to the Public Advertiser, from 21 January 1769 to 21 January 1772 as well as several other London newspapers such as the London Evening Post.
Charles Wentworth Dilke (1789–1864) was an English liberal critic and writer on literature.
With the aid of Lord Dufferin and others connected with the family, Rae researched Richard Brinsley Sheridan and tried to improve his reputation. Sheridan, a Biography (2 vols. 1896) dispelled some rumours, but failed as a whitewash. In 1902 he published Sheridan's Plays, now printed as he wrote them, with A Journey to Bath, an unpublished comedy by Frances Sheridan.[1]
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish satirist, a playwright, poet, and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. He is known for his plays such as The Rivals, The School for Scandal, The Duenna, and A Trip to Scarborough. He was also a Whig MP for 32 years in the British House of Commons for Stafford (1780–1806), Westminster (1806–1807), and Ilchester (1807–1812). He is buried at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. His plays remain a central part of the canon and are regularly performed worldwide.
Frances Sheridan was an Anglo-Irish novelist and playwright.
Rae wrote the preface to Charles W. Vincent's Catalogue of the Library of the Reform Club (1883; 2nd and revised edit. 1894), and contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography. He published anonymously in 1873 Men of the Third Republic, and translated English Portraits, from Sainte-Beuve, in 1875. In fiction, Rae wrote three-volume novels: Miss Bayle's Romance (1887), followed by A Modern Brigand (1888), Maygrove (1890), and An American Duchess (1891).[1]
Family
Rae married, on 29 August 1860, Sara Eliza, second daughter of James Fordati of the Isle of Man and London. She died at Franzensbad, where Rae and herself were frequent autumn visitors, on 29 August 1902; she left two daughters.[1]
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