The Great Writers series was a collection of literary biographies published in London from 1887, by Walter Scott & Co.
[5] The works generally contained a bibliography, compiled by John Parker Anderson of the British Museum.
[6] A comparable French series also began publication in 1887, edited by Jean Jules Jusserand, under the title Les Grands Écrivains Français.
[7] Oscar Wilde called the Great Writers series "unfortunate", but suggested that Anderson's bibliographies were of value, and should be collected up.
[10] Two further lives from the same publisher, of John Ruskin (1910) by Ashmore Wingate,[60] and of Maurice Maeterlinck (1913) by Jethro Bithell,[61] do not conform to the pattern of the series.