The New International Encyclopædia/Colvin, Sidney

COLVIN, kŏl'vĭn, Sidney (1845—). An English author, born at Norwood, Surrey. He graduated in 1867 at Trinity College, Cambridge, was elected a fellow, of the college in 1868, and, having become Slade professor of fine arts at Cambridge, in 1873, held that post by successive reëlections until 1885. In 1876-84 he was also director of the Fitzwilliam Museum of the university. He was appointed keeper of prints and drawings in the British Museum in 1884. His contributions to periodicals on the history and criticism of literature, and more largely of the fine arts, are numerous and valuable. His published works include the volumes on Walter Savage Landor (1881) and John Keats (1887) in the “English Men of Letters” series; A Florentine Picture and Chronicle (1898); The Early History of Engraving in England (1901); and editions of Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor (1882; in the “Golden Treasury” series), of the Letters of Keats (1887), and of the Papers of Fleeming Jenkin (1887; with J. A. Ewing). His labors in connection with the preparation of the standard Edinburgh edition (27 volumes, 1894-98) of the works, and the edition of the collected Letters (2 volumes, London, 1900; preceded in 1895 by Vailima Letters) of his friend, Robert Louis Stevenson, made him an authority on that author. He also wrote the sketch of Stevenson for the Dictionary of National Biography (vol. liv.), and was to have written the authoritative Life, intended for publication simultaneously with the Letters, but was obliged to relinquish the task to Graham Balfour.