E. S. Dallas, journalist and speculative critic, remains best known to scholars and literary historians as the author of The Gay Science (1866), a pioneering work in the field of psychological criticism which was either ignored or resoundingly misunderstood at the time of its publication. In his own day, Dallas achieved considerable if anonymous public influence in his role as a leading reviewer of biography and fiction for the London Times. During the 1850s and 1860s he led the life of an elegant, gregarious man about literary circles, member of the Garrick Club, friend of John Ruskin, dinner guest of George Eliot and George Henry Lewes.

Eneas Sweetland Dallas was born in Jamaica of Scottish parents, Elizabeth Baillie McIntosh Dallas and John Dallas, variously identified as a colonial planter or a physician. Brought to Scotland when he was four years old, Dallas was educated at the University of Edinburgh...