Richard Garnett C.B. was born on the 27th February 1835. Educated in Bloomsbury he then joined the nearby British Museum as an assistant librarian in 1851, shortly after his father’s death. He was continuously promoted to high-ranking positions at the British Library until his retirement in 1899.In his personal life he married Olivia Narney Singleton in 1863 and was the father to six surviving children. Despite the constant call of work and family he found time to translate many titles from their original Greek, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. As an author he wrote several volumes of verse, a book of short stories and several biographies and history books.In 1901, Garnett was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.Richard Garnett died on the 13th April 1906. He was 71.