John Seely

Mark Nixon (University of Reading)
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Born in 1834 into a family of publishers, it is unsurprising that John Seeley took very early to literary and philosophical learning. Upon graduation in 1857, he was made a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge and in 1859 published his first book, a collection of poems under the pseudonym John Robertson. In 1863 he took the chair of Latin at University College London. He made a stir with his anonymous

Ecce Homo

(1865), a doctrinal tract influenced by positivism; the resultant controversy was entered into by the likes of A. P. Stanley, Cardinal Newman and Gladstone. In 1869, despite having never published a historical work, he was made Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge; in his inaugural lecture, he made clear his belief in a positivist-inspired science of history, and then…

311 words

Citation: Nixon, Mark. "John Seely". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 March 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3998, accessed 19 March 2024.]

3998 John Seely 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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