The Times/1922/Obituary/A great bookman

A great bookman.

Mr. Waller's work of English letters.

Cambridge University Press.

English literature has lost a learned and scholarly editor and Cambridge University an able and devoted servant in Mr. Alfred Rayney Waller, Secretary to the Syndics of the University Press, who died at his home in Cambridge on Wednesday.

Born at York on August 2, 1867, Waller early showed a passion for books. By his own exertions, through thick and thorough thin, he acquired a knolwedge of English literature which few could equal and his knowledge of French literature was not to be despised. At the age of twenty-one he came to London to try his fortune in "Grub Street," and on Grub Street he made his mark. Furnivall was one of the first to recognise the young Yorkshireman's exceptional abilities and Waller, with the loyalty that was one of his strongest characteristics, held Furnivall's name in veneration all his life. For fourteen years he laboured in London. Durin g these years he wrote two books, which those who know them value highly, a life of Cardinal Newman, and a small religious allegory, "The Civilizing of the Matanfanus." But the main part of his work was done, as it were, behind the scenes and out of sight. His was the brain which originated many a scheme for the publishers for who he worked—schemes specially for the reprinting of the English poetry and prose of all periods and of all kinds which he loved so sturdily and he knew so thoroughly. He himself had very strict views on the reprinting of text; and when he edited a book the reader knew precisely what he was reading and could cocunt on its being meticulously accurate; while Waller, no lover of introductions for their own sake, could write, when he pleased, introductions that were both useful and charming. To his London years belong, among books too numerous to mention, his edition of Florio's Montaigne and the spade-work on the now standard edition of Hazlitt in thirteen volumes, in which he collaborated with his fried the Arnold Glover. His translation of all Molière's work was also begun before he left London.

At Cambridge

In those fourteen years he had worked hard, not only on English and French literature but on the practical side of the publishing business; and no doubt it was his exceptional power in both capacities which led to his appointment 1902 s Assistant Secretary of the Cambridge University Press, and soon afterwards, on the retirement of Mr. Wright, as Secretary. Now at last he had worthy scope for his gifts and fir his insatiable passion for work. he found the Cambridge University Press a publishing house of high repute in the world of learning, but of small extent and litte popular appeal. He has left it one of the greatest publishing house of the world, a purveyor of good books, finely produced, that sell far and wide, and with its reputation for learning and for scholarship greater than ever. How often Waller, the lover of good books, must have been secretly at loggerheads with Waller the man of business only Waller could have revealed. On matters of finance, all his Yorkshire stubbornness would come into play; it was his duty to safeguard and increase the resources of his beloved Press. Meanwhile the scent for good work, which had made him invaluable as a publisher's "reader" (among other writers than tyros Mr. Galsworthy owed to Waller his first push into public notice); and which in his last years made him an eager student of the latest poetry, added many a sterling book to the Cambridge Press's catalogue. With Sir Adolphus Ward, Master of Peterhouse, he edited "The Cambridge History of English Literature," and the Master of Peterhouse has made it known that the inception of that great work was Waller's. In the series of "Cambridge English Classics" he edited Samuel Butler, Cowley, Crashaw, and Prior (and one of the most joyful moments of his life was when he discovered among the Prior MSS., at Longleat, the inimitable poem on "Jenny the Just"), and finished the edition of Beaumont and Fletcher which Arnold Glover had begun. And to the care which he spent—in those long hours of labour that used to begin daily at three or four o'clock in the morning—on other people's books many a preface bears witness; and three times as many night have, but for his express desire that his name should be left out.

A very modest, very retiring man (he twice refused an honorary degree in American universities, being ore than content with his membership of Peterhouse, and his honorary M.A., of Cambridge University), with a hatred of all show and display, and a dash of Yorkshire gruffness which he found it useful sometimes to exaggerate as a defence for his own very warm heart, Waller could not prevent his many friends from loving him more than most men are loved. he will be sorely missed in Cambridge, not only as a mighty worker and "a great power in the University," as he was recently descried; but as a rate and racy character, as a sterling friend, and a delightful companion in his few off-hours, when he would read aloud in his beautiful voice, or revel in a good story, or talk over one or other of his odd hobbies,—boxing, racing, and tales of school life. Some years of ill-health that threatened him with sudden death could not damp his ardour for literature, for work, and for his life and he worked practically to his last conscious moment.

Waller married Emily Mary Hudson of Cherry Hill House, York, who survives him.