As a bibliographer and an editor, Alexander Balloch Grosart was dedicated to the principle set forth by John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh, that elucidating and rendering accessible the labors of others is as valuable as adding new material to the common store. Grosart devoted his scholarship to making rare and obscure texts available to collectors and students of literature and to producing complete editions of the works of various Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Carolian authors.

Born in Stirling, Scotland, he was the son of William Grosart, a builder and contractor, and Mary Balloch Grosart. The boy was educated in the Scottish tradition at the parish school at Falkirk, though William Grosart also provided private tutoring for his son, who showed an early taste for literary scholarship.

Like many bright young Scotsmen of his day, Grosart was destined for the ministry, and at age twenty-one he entered Edinburgh University for...