INFORMATION
William John Courthope, CB, FBA (17 July 1842 – 10 April 1917) was an English writer and historian of poetry, whose father was rector of South Malling, Sussex.
From Harrow School he went to New College, Oxford; took first-classes in classical moderations and greats; and won the Newdigate prize for poetry (1864) and the Chancellors English essay (1868). He seemed destined for distinction as a poet, his volume of Ludibria Lunae (1869) being followed in 1870 by the remarkably fine Paradise of Birds. But a certain academic quality of mind seemed to check his output in verse and divert it into the field of criticism.