Walter Besant

Sir Walter Besant
Born	(1836-08-14)14 August 1836 Portsmouth,Hampshire,England
Died	9 June 1901(1901-06-09)(aged 64) Frognal,London,England
Occupation(s)	Novelist, historian

Sir Walter Besant(14 August 1836 – 9 June 1901) was an Englishnovelistandhistorian.William Henry Besantwas his brother, and another brother, Frank, was the husband ofAnnie Besant.

Early life and education

The son of wine merchant William Besant (1800–1879),he was born atPortsmouth,Hampshireand attended school at St Paul's, Southsea, Stockwell Grammar, London andKing's College London.In 1855, he was admitted as apensionertoChrist's College,Cambridge,where he graduated in 1859 as 18thwrangler.

After a year as Mathematical Master atRossall School,Fleetwood,Lancashire,and a year atLeamington College,he spent six years as professor of mathematics at theRoyal College,British Mauritius.A decline in health compelled him to resign, and he returned to England and settled in London in 1867. From 1868 to 1885, he held the position of Secretary to thePalestine Exploration Fund.In 1871, he was admitted toLincoln's Inn.

In 1874, Besant married Mary Garrett (néeFoster Barham), daughter of Eustace Foster-Barham, of Bridgwater, with whom he had four children. For some time he took care of his sister-in-lawAnnie Besant,a prominent women’s rights activist, socialist, and theosophist.

Career

In 1868 he publishedStudies in French Poetry.Three years later he began his collaboration with writerJames Rice.Among their joint productions areReady-money Mortiboy(1872), andThe Golden Butterfly(1876), both, especially the latter, very successful. This association was ended by the death of Rice in 1882.

Thereafter, Besant continued to write voluminously by himself, his main novels beingAll in a Garden Fair(whichRudyard Kiplingcredited inSomething of Myselfwith inspiring him to leave India and make a career as a writer, and whichGeorge Gissingread with 'extreme delight', calling it 'one of the most charming and delicate of modern novels),Dorothy Forster(his own favorite),Children of Gibeon,andAll Sorts and Conditions of Men.The two last belonged to a series in which he endeavored to arouse the public conscience to the hardship among the poorest classes of cities. In this crusade Besant had considerable success, the establishment of ThePeople's Palacein the East of London being one result. His 1889 novelThe Bell of St. Paul'swas considered by his contemporary authorGeorge Gissingto be an 'absurd and empty book'.

In addition to his fiction, Besant wrote largely on the history andtopographyof London. His plans for this topic were left unfinished: among his books on this subject isLondon in the 18th Century.

Sir Walter Besant memorial near the Waterloo Bridge

Besant was afreemason,joining the Lodge of Harmony in Mauritius in 1862. He became Master of Marquis of Dalhousie Lodge, London in 1873, having joined in 1869. He was one of the founders of the first Masonic research lodge,Quatuor Coronati LodgeNo 2076, of which he was the first treasurer from 1886.He was also one of the foundersand first chairof theSociety of Authorsin 1884. He was knighted in the1895 Birthday Honours.

Besant was treasurer of the "Atlantic Union", an association which sought to improve social relations between Britons and Americans.In 1896, he published an article in theNorth American Reviewadvocating the creation of a "United Federation of States" to unify theAnglosphereunder a federal system; he cited the "restlessness" of theAnglo-Saxon peopleand the existing achievements of the United States and the British Empire in claiming that the Federation "would be the greatest, the richest, the most powerful empire, republic or state that history has ever recorded."He died inFrognalinHampstead,London on 9 June 1901, aged 64.

Works

Fiction

• The Alabaster Box.1900.
• Alfred.3rd ed. 1899.
• All in a Garden Fair.3 vols. 1883.1891 editionat theInternet Archive
• All Sorts and Conditions of Men.3 vols. 1882.1890 editionat theInternet Archive
• Armorel of Lyonesse.3 vols. 1890.1907 editionat theInternet Archive
• The Bell of St. Paul's.3 vols. 1889.
• Beyond the Dreams of Avarice.1895.
• Blind Love.ByWilkie Collins,completed and with preface by W. Besant. 3 vols. 1890.
• By Celia’s Arbour: A tale of Portsmouth town.With James Rice. Reprinted fromThe Graphic.3 vols. 1878.
• The Captains' Room etc..3 vols.
• The Case of Mr. Lucraft and other tales.By the authors ofReady Money Mortiboy(with James Rice). 2 vols. 1876.
• The Changeling.1898.
• The Chaplain of the Fleet.With James Rice 3 vols. 1881.1887 editionat theInternet Archive
• Children of Gibeon.2nd ed. 3 vols. 1886.
• The City of Refuge.3 vols. 1896.1899 editionat theInternet Archive
• Dorothy Forster.3 vols. 1884.1891 editionat theInternet Archive
• Doubts of Dives.[Speculative fiction in which a rich and poor man exchange bodies].
• A Five Years' Tryst and other stories.1902.
• For Britain's Soldiers.By W.L. Alden, Sir W. Besant etc., with preface by C.J.C. Hyne. 1900.
• For Faith and Freedom.3 vols. 1889.1891 editionat theInternet Archive
• The History of London,1894.
• A Fountain Sealed.1897.
• The Fourth Generation.1900.
• The Golden Butterfly.With James Rice. 3 vols. 1876.1887 editionat theInternet Archive
• Herr Paulus.3 vols. 1888.1890 editionat theInternet Archive
• The Holy Rose &c.1890.
• In Deacon's Orders &c.1895.
• The Inner House.1888. [Dystopian fiction about a society that has discovered immortality]
• The Ivory Gate.3 vols. 1893.1894 editionat theInternet Archive
• The Lady of Lynn. 1901.
• The Master Craftsman.2 vols. 1896.
• The Monks of Thelema.With James Rice. 3 vols. 1878.1884 editionat theInternet Archive
• My Little Girl.By the authors ofReady-money Mortiboy.With James Rice. 3 vols. 1873.
• No Other Way.1902.
• The Orange Girl.1899.
• Ready-Money Mortiboy.Repr. fromOnce a Week.With James Rice. 3 vols. 1872. Repr. of 1885 ed. Bath, 1974.1890 editionat theInternet Archive
• The Rebel Queen.3 vols. 1893.
• The Revolt of Man.1882. [Speculative fiction: traditional roles of sexes are reversed].
• St. Katherine's by the Tower.3 vols. 1891.
• The Seamy Side.With James Rice. 3 vols. 2nd. ed. 1880.1881 editionat theInternet Archive
• The Ten Years' Tenant and other stories.With James Rice. 3 vols.
• This Son of Vulcan.By the authors ofReady-Money Mortiboy.With James Rice. 3 vols. 1876.
• To Call Her Mine &c.1889.
• "Twas in Trafalgar's Bay" and other stories.With James Rice. 2nd ed. 1879.
• Uncle Jack &c.1885.1887 editionat theInternet Archive
• Verbena, Camellia, Stephanotis, &c.1892.
• With Harp and Crown.By the authors of “Ready-Money Mortiboy.” With James Rice. 3 vols. 1875.1890 editionat theInternet Archive
• The World Went Very Well Then.3 vols (vol. I,vol. II,vol. III). 1887.

Collected editions (fiction)

Novels by W.B. and James Rice.Library ed. 10 vols. 1887–88. Comprising in sequenceReady-Money Mortiboy,This Son of Vulcan,With Harp and Crown,The Golden Butterfly,By Celia’s Arbour,The Seamy Side,The Chaplain of the Fleet,The Case of Mr. Lucraft and Other Tales,‘Twas in Trafalgar’s Bay and Other Stories,The Ten Years’ Tenant and Other Stories[My Little Girl,The Monks of Thelemaapparently missing from this series].

Plays

• The Charm and other drawing-room plays.With W. Pollock. 1896

General non-fiction

[excluding items on London]

• "The Amusements of the People",Contemporary Review45 (1884): 342-53.
• William Tuckwell,Art and hand work for the people, being three papers read before the Social Science Congress, Sept. 1884.By W.T.,C. G. Leland,and W. Besant. Manchester, 1885.
• The Art of Fiction: A Lecture Delivered at the Royal Institution on Friday Evening, April 25, 1884.1884. New ed., 1902.
• As we are and as we may be.1903.
• Autobiography.With prefatory note by S. Squire Sprigge. Hutchinson, 1902.
• Bourbonjournal, August 1863.1933.
• Captain Cook.English Men of Action.1890.
• Constantinople. A sketch of its history from its foundation to its conquest by the Turks in 1453.By W.J.B. and Walter Besant. 1879.
• Essays and Historiettes.1903.
• The Eulogy ofRichard Jefferies.1888.
• Fifty Years Ago.1888.
• The French Humourists from the 12th to the 19th century. 1873.
• Gaspard de Coligny.The New Plutarch.1879. New ed. 1894.
• Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin.By W.B. andE.H. Palmer.1871.
• The Life and Achievements ofEdward Henry Palmer.1883.
• The Pen and the Book. 1899.
• The Queen’s Reign and its commemoration.1897.
• SirRichard Whittington,Lord Mayor of London.With James Rice. The New Plutarch. 1881. New ed. 1894.
• The Story ofKing Alfred.[1912].
• Studies in Early French Poetry.1868.
• Rabelais.1879.

Selected books on London

[volumes in the 10-volumeSurvey of Londonpublished by A & C. Black are included under their individual volume titles and marked with an asterisk]

• "ThePeople's Palace",Contemporary Review51 (1887): 226-33.
• East London.1901.
• Early London: prehistoric, Roman, Saxon, and Norman. 1908.*
• Hackney and Stoke Newington.WithG. E. Mitton.Fascination of London series. 1908.
• Holborn and Bloomsbury.With G. E. Mitton. Fascination of London series. 1903.
• London. 1892.
• London. 1894.
• London. City.1910.*
• London in the Eighteenth Century.1902.*
• London in the Nineteenth Century.1909.*=
• London in the Time of the Stuarts.1903.*=
• London in the Time of the Tudors.1904.*
• London, North of the Thames.1911.*
• London, South of the Thames.1912.*
• Medieval London. 2 vols. 1906.**
• Shoreditch and the East End.With others. Fascination of London series. 1908.
• South London.1899.
• The Strand District.With G. E. Mitton. Fascination of London series. Repr. with corrections. 1903.
• The Thames.Fascination of London series. 1903.
• Westminster.1895.

Memorial

There is a monument to Besant in the crypt atSt Paul's Cathedral.

References and citations

Further reading

• S. T. Bindoff, "East End Delight",East London Papers3 (1960): 31–40.
• Fred W. Boege, "Sir Walter Besant: Novelist",Nineteenth Century Fiction10 (1956): 249–80; 11 (1956): 32–60.
• Simon Eliot, "'His Generation Read His Stories': Walter Besant, Chatto and Windus and All Sorts and Conditions of Men,"Publishing History21 (1987): 25–67.
• John Goode, "The Art of Fiction: Walter Besant and Henry James," in David Howard, John Lucas, and John Goode, eds.,Tradition and Tolerance in Nineteenth-Century Fiction: Critical Essays on Some English and American Novels(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966).
• Charles G. Harper, "Walter Besant’s London", Chapter VII of hisA Literary Man’s London(London: Cecil Palmer, 1926), pp. 196–221.
• Gareth Stedman Jones,Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship between Classes in Victorian Society(Oxford: Clarendon, 1971).
• P. J. Keating,The Working Classes in Victorian Fiction(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971).
• Peter Keating,The Haunted Study: A Social History of the English Novel 1875–1914(London: Secker and Warburg, 1989).
• Andrew Mearns, "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London" (1883 penny pamphlet).
• G. P. Moss and M. V. Saville,From Palace to College: An Illustrated Account of Queen Mary College, University of London(London: Queen Mary College, 1985).
• Wim Neetens, "Problems of a 'Democratic Text': Walter Besant’s Impossible Story,"Novel23 (1990): 247-64.
• Alan Palmer,The East End: Four Centuries of London Life(London: John Murray, 1989).
• Review,All Sorts and Conditions of Men,Westminster ReviewNS 63 (January 1883): 288.
• Review,All Sorts and Conditions of Men,Spectator,21 October 1882: 1349.
• Helen Small, "Introduction," Walter Besant,All Sorts and Conditions of Men(Oxford: OUP, 1997), x-xxv.
• Mark Spilka, "Henry James and Walter Besant: 'The Art of Fiction' Controversy,"Novel6 (1973): 101-9.
• Eileen Yeo, "Culture and Constraint in Working-Class Movements," in Eileen Yeo and Stephen Yeo, eds.,Popular Culture and Class Conflict, 1590–1914: Explorations in the History of Labour and Leisure(Brighton, 1987), 155-86.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Cousin, John William(1910). "Besant, Sir Walter".A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.London: J. M. Dent & Sons – viaWikisource.

External links

• Media related toWalter Besantat Wikimedia Commons
• Works by or aboutWalter BesantatWikisource
• Quotations related toWalter Besantat Wikiquote
• London History CollectionatUniversity College London(includes circa 40 works by Besant)
• Sir Walter Besant Collectionat theHarry Ransom Center
• Works by Walter BesantatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Walter Besantat theInternet Archive
• Works by Walter BesantatLibriVox(public domain audiobooks)