George Meredith

George Meredith (1828-1909), English novelist and poet, whose works are highly cerebral, containing character studies of great psychological insight. His works display a sophisticated comic sense and reflect his concern for social problems.

Meredith was born February 12, 1828, in Portsmouth. He was educated at Portsmouth and at the Moravian school in Neuwied, Germany. He began his career as a journalist. His first book of poetry (1851) received the praise of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, but his first major novel, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859), was banned as immoral. His sonnet sequence Modern Love is generally considered his best poetic work. Emilia in England (afterward called Sandra Belloni) was published in 1864 and Rhoda Fleming in 1865.

When war between Austria and Italy broke out in 1866, Meredith went to Italy as a war correspondent. He expressed his sympathy with the cause of Italian independence in his next book, Vittoria (1867), a sequel to Emilia in England. In 1871 he published The Adventures of Harry Richmond, a romantic novel. Beauchamp's Career (1876), largely concerned English politics, and The Egoist (1879) made a pitiless analysis of innate selfishness. The Tragic Comedians, a novel, appeared in 1880 and, in 1883, Poems and Lyrics of the Joy of Earth.

With the publication of Diana of the Crossways (1885) Meredith achieved critical acclaim in Britain and the U.S. In 1905 he received the Order of Merit. Among his other works are the novels Evan Harrington (1860), One of Our Conquerors (1891), Lord Ormont and His Aminta (1894), and The Amazing Marriage (1895) and the volumes of verse A Reading of Earth (1888), A Reading of Life (1901), and Last Poems (1909).

Meredith died at his home near Box Hill, Surrey, on May 18, 1909.