Palgrave (1824-1897), son of the eminent historian Sir Francis Palgrave, was born into a family tradition of art, culture, and academic achievement. He was familiar from infancy with collections of books, pictures, and engravings. In 1842 he gained a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. In 1849 he made the acquaintance of Tennyson, and the two developed a lasting friendship. During annual holidays spent with Tennyson in England or abroad the concept of an anthology was gradually developed. After first publication in 1861, Palgrave's Golden Treasury achieved decisive success and superceded all similar anthologies through the rest of the nineteenth century. Like all anthologies, it is open to criticism for inclusions and omissions (some of which Palgrave addressed in later editions) but it remains one of those rare instances in which critical work has a substantive imaginative value in itself. [DNB]