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Sir Leslie Stephen

6 of 13 portraits of Sir Leslie Stephen

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Sir Leslie Stephen

by Eveleen Myers (née Tennant)
platinum print, circa 1890
11 1/8 in. x 9 3/8 in. (284 mm x 239 mm) image size
Purchased, 1991
Photographs Collection
NPG Ax36302

Sitterback to top

  • Sir Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), Writer, philosopher, mountaineer and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography; Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. Sitter in 13 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Eveleen Myers (née Tennant) (1856-1937), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 203 portraits, Sitter associated with 30 portraits.

This portraitback to top

This photograph was taken during Stephen's editorship of the Dictionary of National Biography. At 63 volumes, the Dictionary was the most ambitious literary project of its day. Stephen took a strenuous role at every level of its production, finding it to be 'a very laborious and a very worrying piece of work'. He resigned as editor in 1891 but continued to contribute entries, mostly on literary figures (283 in total). He was celebrated for his 'irreproachable candour and moderation of judgment.'

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1890back to top

Current affairs

William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, publishes In Darkest England, in which he compares the supposedly 'civilised' England with 'Darkest Africa'. A critique of the degenerate state of society, Booth also proposed social welfare schemes to alleviate the sufferings of the urban poor.
The world's first electric underground railway opens to the public in London, passing under the Thames and linking the City of London and Stockwell.

Art and science

William Morris founds the Kelmscott Press, a revival of art and craft techniques of book printing. Publications included The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896), with decorative designs and typeface by Morris and illustrations by Edward Burne-Jones.
Vincent Van Gogh dies after shooting himself in the chest in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.
Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray first appears in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine .

International

Cecil Rhodes, organiser of the diamond-mining De Beers Consolidated Mines, becomes premier of Cape Colony as part of his expansionist aims in South Africa.
In Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II dismisses Otto von Bismarck.
An international anti-slavery conference is held in Brussels, leading to the signing of a treaty by all the major maritime nations covering action to be taken against the trade in Africa and suppression of it by sea.

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