Career
There is little information about him biographically, though indications are that he was a very well-educated and literate scholar. He lived in the area of Corstorphine, Scotland which is now a suburb of Edinburgh. In the mid-1890s, he joined a project led by Alexander Tille to produce a complete English edition of Nietzsche"s work.
Common translated several of them, including a version of Thus Spoke Zarathustra published in 1909.
In 1901 he published a book called Nietzsche as Critic, Philosopher, Poet and Prophet, which was extremely enthusiastic about its subject, and was recommended to the publisher by George Bernard Shaw. The book did not circulate widely as the publisher went bankrupt very soon after publication, but it was read by West. B. Yeats, who was strongly influenced by Nietzschean ideas, as can be seen in his poetry.