File:George Meredith; his life and friends in relation to his work (1920) (14744062786).jpg

Identifier: cu31924013524487 (find matches)
Title: George Meredith; his life and friends in relation to his work
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Ellis, S. M. (Stewart Marsh)
Subjects: Meredith, George, 1828-1909
Publisher: London, G. Richards ltd.
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Before Image:
as written at Weybridge with duns at the door. He wa
salso conceiving Richard Feverel, but both works were
completed elsewhere. It is interesting to note, in
confirmation of the fact that Meredith was really
contemporary with, and one of the band of, the great
Victorian writers, that in this same year, 1852-1853,
which saw the dawn of these two masterpieces,
appeared Dickens's Bleak House, Thackeray's
Esmond and The Newcomes, Kingsley's Hypatia,
Charlotte Brontë's Villette, Lytton's My Novel, Mrs
Gaskell's Cranford, and novels by the lesser lights,
Charles Lever, Harrison Ainsworth, G. P. R. James,
Frank Smedley, and Surtees, Browning and
Tennyson, too, were producing fine poetry, so young
Meredith had a noble band of rivals in the field of
literary endeavour.
In 1853 he and his wife removed from Weybridge
to the opposite side of the river, Lower Halliford, to
live, for a time, with Mrs Meredith's father, Thomas
Love Peacock, whose wife, Jane Gryffydh, had died
the previous year. Peacock was now sixty-eight

76
Text Appearing After Image:

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK

THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK 77

years of age, with the most important events of his
life behind him. His earlier years he had passed in
literary dalliance, and his famous friendship with
Shelley commenced in 1812. He accompanied the
poet and Harriet to Edinburgh in 1813 ; and when
Shelley was at Windsor and Marlow, where also
Peacock was then living, in 1816, the two men were
constantly together. To Peacock, Shelley"s fine
letters from Italy were addressed, and it was this
friend who endeavoured to bring about the pro-
duction of The Cenci at Covent Garden Theatre.
The first of the delightful series of Peacock's novels,
Headlong Hall, appeared in 1816, and the last, Gryll
Grange, in 1860. Those known to Shelley wer
much admired by him, including Nightmare Abbey,
wherein he was amusingly satirised; possibly the
author depicted himself as Mr dowry, for that
" very consolate widower " held " that there was
but one good thing in the world, videlicet, a good
dinner " —which was certainly one of the articles of
Peacockian belief.

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