Born in London, Sept. 24, 1768, was educated at a school in Pentonville, and at an early age was articled to an attorney. The first volume of his “History of the Anglo-Saxons” appeared in 1799, and the third in 1805. The three volumes of the “History of England during the Middle Ages, from the Norman Conquest to 1509,” appeared in 1814, 1815, and 1823; “The History of the Reign of Henry VIII.” in 1826; and “The History of the Reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth,” in 1829. Sharon Turner wrote some poems, and “The Sacred History of the World,” in three volumes, which appeared in 1832, 1834, and 1837. He died in Red Lion Square, London, Feb. 13, 1847.

History of the Anglo-Saxons, 1799–1805

  So much new information was probably never laid before the public in any one historical publication.

  Among many historical efforts, principally concerning England in different periods, his “History of the Anglo-Saxons” stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook that history. The style is not good—too epigrammatic and broken; but his research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for a knowledge of the Saxon period.

  The first edition was published as early as 1805; and though for the edition of 1807 the work was carefully revised, it can hardly be considered a standard authority at the present day. The investigations of Kemble, Palgrave, and others have deprived it of a value it once possessed. It will be found, however, that the volumes contain many minute details of considerable interest. The author was a special student of this period; but, though he accumulated a vast number of interesting facts, his methods were much less philosophical than those of his more distinguished successors in the same field. The literary style is not such as to give additional value to the volumes. Aside from its intrinsic merits, the work is entitled to some respect; for, when it was first published, it was a genuine revelation to the English people. Until that time, no one had taken the trouble to collect the accessible evidence and bring it into a single book. Turner, therefore, performed a very useful work in calling attention to a field which has since been very successfully cultivated.

General

  One of the best writers, of the most learned antiquarians and most enlightened scholars of his time.

  We shall not otherwise advert to living historians than to observe, that Mr. Sharon Turner has earned the honourable reputation of indefatigable diligence, of the love of truth and mankind, but has exposed himself more and more in each successive volume to literary criticisms.

  Mr. Turner is often capable of affording his reader valuable topics of reflection; but, though apparently a most patient antiquarian, his imagination is so active, that his style is unexpectedly loaded with metaphors, to a degree that is not only inconsistent with historic composition, but with all composition. Very extensive reading is displayed; and on the whole, the work may be consulted with advantage. There is nothing said of the laws of Edward the Confessor, a strange omission! nor of the rise of the English House of Commons, though Mr. Turner evidently conceives that the Commons formed no part of the witenage mote. Mr. Turner has, since I wrote this paragraph, published three quarto volumes on the English History, from William I. to Henry VIII. He is an antiquarian, as I have mentioned, and whatever a man who looks into original records publishes, must be more or less of importance. Mr. Turner often gives his reader the impression of an amiable man, rather than one of a very superior understanding: yet many curious particulars may be collected, and much instruction may be derived from his learned and often amusing work.

  Turner’s “History of England” down to the lives of the Tudors is replete with Anglo-Saxon and other ancient learning; and it is written with dignity, purity, and eloquence. Turner surpasses Hume in the depth and fulness of his researches, and in the spirit and tenor of his moral reflections.

  Is most honourably laborious and trustworthy, though wearisomely heavy and pompous.

  Turner’s “History of England,” though distinguished by the same research and acuteness, [as the “History of the Anglo-Saxons”], is not of equal merit; and, unfortunately, the peculiarities and uncouthness of its style, as well as a strange attempt to introduce novelty in spelling, has hindered the work from acquiring the popularity which it really deserves.

  From an ambitious attempt to rival Gibbon in loftiness of style and diction, Mr. Turner has disfigured his “History” by a pomp of expression and involved intricacy of style, that often border on the ludicrous, and mar the effect of his narrative. This defect is more conspicuous in his latter volumes. The early part of his “History,” devoted to the Anglo-Saxons, and the labour as he informs us, of sixteen years, is by far the most valuable.

  His “History of the Anglo-Saxons” contains a mass of valuable matter, handled with a rather too obvious reminiscence of the large evolution of the “Decline and Fall,” and in a style which has caught Gibbon’s pomp without his splendour. He subsequently carried on the history to the reign of Elizabeth, but this part of his work was soon obscured by Lingard, while his Anglo-Saxon labours retained prestige until superseded by Kemble and Thorpe, who built upon the broader foundation of the school of Grimm.