Baring-Gould had one of the most bril­liant, ec­lec­tic minds of Vic­tor­i­an Eng­land. Born in­to the land­ed gen­try, he at­tend­ed schools in Ger­ma­ny and France, then went to Clare Coll­ege at Cam­bridge. He learned six lan­guag­es, en­tered the min­is­try at age 30, and pas­tored in York­shire, Es­sex, and Dev­on­shire.

He al­so found time to write over 100 books, in­clud­ing 30 nov­els and a mam­moth 16-vo­lume Lives of the Saints. His works cov­er a huge range of top­ics: the­ol­o­gy, folk­lore, so­cial com­ment­ary, trav­el & his­to­ry. One ac­count of his life states, “At one point there were more books list­ed un­der his name in the Brit­ish Mu­se­um Lib­rary than un­der that of any other Eng­lish writ­er.” But he was not just an au­thor: He was an ar­chae­ol­o­gist, ar­chi­tect, ar­tist, teach­er and col­lect­or of Eng­lish folk songs. His fam­i­ly es­tate at Lew Trench­ard, near Dart­moor in Dev­on­shire, is now a ho­tel.