A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature/Turner, Sharon

by John William Cousin

Turner, Sharon (1768-1847).—Historian, b. in London, was a solicitor, and becoming interested in the study of Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon literature, pub. the results of his researches in his History of the Anglo-Saxons (1799-1805). Thereafter he continued the narrative in History of England (1814-29), carrying it on to the end of the reign of Elizabeth. These histories, especially the former, though somewhat marred by an attempt to emulate the grandiose style of Gibbon, were works of real research, and opened up, and to a considerable extent developed, a new field of inquiry. T. also wrote a Sacred History of the World, and a poem on Richard III.