Augustus Hare

Who was Augustus Hare?

Augustus John Cuthbert Hare was an English writer and raconteur.

He was the youngest son of Francis George Hare of Herstmonceux, East Sussex, and Gresford, Flintshire, Wales, and nephew of Augustus William Hare and Julius Hare. Augustus Hare was born in Rome; later he was adopted by his aunt, the widow of Augustus Hare, and his parents renounced all further claim to him. His autobiography The Story of My Life details both a devotion to his adopted mother, Maria, and an intense unhappiness with his home education. He spent one year at Harrow School in 1847 but left due to ill health. In 1853 he matriculated at University College, Oxford, graduating in 1857 with a BA.

Hare was the author of a large number of books, which fall into two classes: biographies of members and connections of his family, and descriptive and historical accounts of various countries and cities. To the first belong Memorials of a Quiet Life, Story of Two Noble Lives, The Gurneys of Earlham, and an autobiography in six volumes. This last included a number of accounts of encounters with ghosts. A reviewer in the New York Times concluded that "Mr Hare's ghosts are rather more interesting than his lords or his middle-class people".