George+Meredith

Author: George Meredith 1828-1909 Portrait of George Meredith, 1893, by George Frederic Watts
 * George Meredith was a Victorian writer in the second half of the 19th century.
 * He went to school in Germany before choosing a profession in journalism and poetry. He collaborated with Edward Peacock, the son of Thomas Love Peacock who published a privately circulated literary magazine. In 1849 he married Edward Peacock’s widowed sister Mary Ellen Nicolls when he was 21 and she was 28.
 * 1851- //Poems//

The Death of Chatterton by Henry Wallis. George Meredith posed for this painting in 1856
 * In 1856 he posed as a model for his friends and pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis.
 * Two years later (1858), Mary Ellen ran away with Wallis, leaving Meredith with their five year old son, Arthur. Soon after, Mary Ellen became sick and she died three years later. //Modern Love// was published in 1862, right after his wife’s death. He also wrote a novel, //The Ordeal of Richard Feverel//, which was not very well received. He didn’t speak much about their marriage publicly, but both //Modern Love// and //The Ordeal of Richard Feverel// allude strongly to unhappy and deteriorating marriages.
 * He also made money as a publisher’s reader and he made many friends in the literary world, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy.
 * Before he died, Meredith received the honor of being president of the Society of Authors and in 1905 he was appointed to the Order of Merit by King Edward VII.

Photo of George Meredith