David Daiches

David Daiches was a Scottish literary historian and literary critic, scholar and writer. He wrote extensively on English literature, Scottish literature and Scottish culture.

He was born in Sunderland, into a Jewish family with a Lithuanian background - the subject of his 1956 memoir, Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood. He moved to Edinburgh while still a young child, about the end of World War I, where his father, Rev. Dr. Salis Daiches was rabbi to Edinburgh's Jewish community. He studied at George Watson's College and won a scholarship to University of Edinburgh where he won the Elliot prize. He went to Oxford where he became the Elton exhibitioner, and was elected Fellow of Balliol College in 1936.

During World War II, he worked for the British Embassy in Washington, DC, producing pamphlets for the British Information Service and drafting speeches on British institutions and foreign policy.

Daiches' first published work was The Place of Meaning in Poetry, published in 1935. He was a prolific writer, producing works on English literature, Scottish literature, literary history and criticism as well as the broader role of literature in society and culture.

Daiches was the father of Jenni Calder, also a Scottish literary historian.