A. C. Bradley
British literary scholar (1851–1935)
Andrew Cecil Bradley, (26 March 1851 – 2 September 1935) was an English literary scholar, best remembered for his work on Shakespeare.
Life
Bradley was born at Park Hill, Clapham, then in Surrey but now part of London. He was the son of Charles Bradley (1789–1871), vicar of Glasbury, the youngest of nine children by his second wife Emma Linton; the philosopher Francis Herbert Bradley (1846–1924), was the fifth child.
Bradley studied at Balliol College, Oxford. He obtained a Balliol Fellowship in 1874 and lectured first in English and subsequently in philosophy until 1881. He then took a permanent position at the University of Liverpool where he lectured on literature. In 1889 he moved to Glasgow as Regius Professor. In 1901 he was elected to the Oxford professorship of poetry. During his five years in this post he produced Shakespearean Tragedy (1904) and Oxford Lectures on Poetry (1909). He was later made an honorary fellow of Balliol and was awarded honorary doctorates from Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh (1899), and Durham, and was offered (but declined) the King Edward VII chair at Cambridge.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “A. C. Bradley” as british literary scholar (1851–1935). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as british literary scholar (1851–1935). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2818917. VIAF identifies the subject as 51737969. The Library of Congress control number is n79082246. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1851, 1935, 1789 and 1871.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “A. C. Bradley”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow A. C. Bradley primary sources, A. C. Bradley archive and Bradley research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “A. C. Bradley”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “A. C. Bradley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.