Life of Johann Wolfgang Goethe

Sime (1843-95) was a Scottish biologist, literary critic and historian. He graduated from Edinburgh University with an MA and rather than entering the ministry he travelled to Germany where he studied German literature and philosophy, first at Heidelberg, then at Berlin University. He returned to England in 1869, taking up journalism in London before leaving for Edinburgh the following year where he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1871 he took a mastership at Edinburgh Academy but resigned in 1874 and returned to London. From that time on he was a writer for the remainder of his life, covering subjects including social and educational topics, and European politics. As a journalist he worked on The Globe, the Pall Mall Gazette and St James's Gazette and also contributed to The Athenaeum, Saturday Review and the English Illustrated Magazine. He wrote long-term for The Graphic and Daily Graphic, and for some time was on the staff of Nature magazine. This work on Goethe was first published in the Great Writers series of literary biographies in 1888.