SOURCE: "If One Had to Pick the Strangest Victorian," in Smithsonian, Vol. 24, No. 4, July, 1993, pp. 74-80, 82-3.

In the following excerpt, Roberts discusses biographical details of Baring-Gould's life, and gives a brief descriptive overview of his varied literary career.

Writing in 1890, Sir James M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, ranked him as one of the eight or ten most important living novelists. The poet Algernon Charles Swinburne thought his dark saga Mehalah "as good as Wuthering Heights." At one point there were more books listed under his name in the British Museum Library than under that of any other English writer. Queen Victoria was consoled by his poetry, Gladstone was impressed by his theological works, and journalists descended upon his West Country estate to glimpse the man at work.

How is it, then, that the world has all but forgotten Sabine Baring-Gould? During his long life, which...