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= George_Meredith =
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Introduction
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George Meredith (12 February 1828 - 18 May 1909) was an English
novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first, his focus was
poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but Meredith gradually
established a reputation as a novelist. 'The Ordeal of Richard
Feverel' (1859) briefly scandalised Victorian literary circles. Of his
later novels, the most enduring is 'The Egoist' (1879), though in his
lifetime his greatest success was 'Diana of the Crossways' (1885). His
novels were innovative in their attention to characters' psychology,
and also portrayed social change. His style, in both poetry and prose,
was noted for its syntactic complexity; Oscar Wilde likened it to
"chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of lightning". Meredith was an
encourager of other novelists, as well as an influence on them; among
those to benefit were Robert Louis Stevenson and George Gissing.
Meredith was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times.
Early years, education and first marriage
===========================================
Meredith was born at 73 High Street, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England,
the only child of Augustus Urmston Meredith and his wife Jane Eliza
(née Macnamara). The name Meredith is Welsh, and he would describe
himself as "half Irish and half Welsh" (on his mother's and father's
sides, respectively). He was proud of his Welsh origins, and such
pride is evident in his novels. His biographer Lionel Stevenson
explains that Meredith's paternal grandfather, Melchizedek, would
sometimes "boast eloquently of his princely forebears", but "between
his immediate forebears and the legendary Welsh princes of seven
centuries before, the history of the family remains obscure."
Augustus Meredith was, as Melchizedek Meredith had been before him, a
naval outfitter, and among his employees was James Watson Gieve. Jane
died when her son was five, and the outfitting business failed, with
Augustus declared bankrupt in November 1838. He moved to London and in
July 1839 remarried - his second wife being the family's former
housekeeper, Matilda Buckett.
George Meredith was educated in Southsea until 1840, when a legacy
from his mother's sister, Anna, made it possible for him to attend a
boarding school in Lowestoft, Suffolk. In August 1842 he was sent to
the Moravian School in Neuwied, near Coblenz, where he remained until
the spring of 1844; Lionel Stevenson argues that the experience
instilled his "impatience towards sham and servility, contempt for
conceit, admiration for courage, and devotion to candid and rational
forthrightness".
By 1845 it was planned that he would be articled to a solicitor,
Richard Charnock of Paternoster Row, and he was duly articled in
February 1846, shortly before his eighteenth birthday. But he
abandoned the legal profession for journalism and poetry, taking
lodgings in Pimlico.
Drawn to literary circles, Meredith collaborated with Edward Gryffydh
Peacock, son of Thomas Love Peacock, in publishing a privately
circulated literary magazine, the 'Monthly Observer'. One of the
contributors was Edward Peacock's sister Mary Ellen Nicolls. Described
by the artist William Holman Hunt as "a dashing type of horsewoman who
attracted much notice", Mary was the widow of a naval officer,
Lieutenant Edward Nicolls, who in 1844 had drowned while attempting to
rescue a man under his command.
In August 1849 Meredith married Mary, at St George's, Hanover Square.
At the time of the marriage, Meredith was 21 years old; she was 28 and
had a five-year-old daughter by Lieutenant Nicolls (born after his
death). Augustus Meredith was not present at the wedding, having
emigrated to South Africa in April of that year.
First books
=============
Meredith collected his early writings, first published in periodicals,
in an 1851 volume, 'Poems'. Dedicated to his father-in-law Thomas Love
Peacock, "with the profound admiration and affectionate respect of his
son-in-law", it attracted the interest of Tennyson, who wrote Meredith
an admiring letter, expressing the desire to meet, though their first
encounter was awkward and left Meredith convinced of the elder poet's
"conceit". A review by William Michael Rossetti likened Meredith to "a
kind of limited Keats", "a seeing or sensuous poet" possessing "warmth
of emotion".
The Merediths' circumstances were precarious, and Mary had more than
one miscarriage before in 1853 giving birth to a son, Arthur Gryffydh.
At the time the couple were living with her father in Lower Halliford
(today part of Shepperton). Following the birth, Peacock rented a
house for them, across the village green from his home.
Fatherhood heightened Meredith's belief that he must press ahead with
his writing career, resulting in what would eventually be his first
substantial work of prose fiction, 'The Shaving of Shagpat'. An
allegorical Arabian fantasy, it was written in imitation of "the style
and manner of the Oriental story-tellers", but sprang "from no Eastern
source". The book attracted little notice when published, in 1856,
though it was praised by George Eliot for its "poetical genius". The
following year he published 'Farina', subtitled "A Legend of Cologne",
a work in the comic-grotesque vein that was described by 'The
Athenaeums critic as "a full-blooded specimen of the nonsense of
Genius" and a "lively, audacious piece of extravaganza". George Eliot,
in 'The Westminster Review', called it "an original and an
entertaining book", but it inevitably suffered from her reviewing it
alongside 'Madame Bovary' and 'Barchester Towers'.
End of first marriage
=======================
'The Death of Chatterton', a notable painting by the English
Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis (1830-1916), for which Meredith
served as the model, was exhibited in 1856. Mary and Wallis grew close
and became lovers. In 1857, she fell pregnant to him and in April 1858
gave birth to a son, Harold, who was later known as Felix Wallis. The
relationship with Wallis however did not last; having spent some of
1858 with him in Capri, she returned to England with Harold, and from
then on moved frequently. She died three years later, of kidney
failure, a few months after moving to Grotto Cottage, Oatlands Park,
Weybridge. Meredith was by this time living in Chelsea, where he kept
rooms in Hobury Street and often had Arthur in his care. He did not
attend Mary's funeral; neither did Henry Wallis or her father.
Meredith's first major novel, 'The Ordeal of Richard Feverel', emerged
from his experience of the collapse of his marriage and shocked many
readers with its sexual frankness. His collection of fifty sonnets
entitled 'Modern Love' (1862) also traces the decline of a marriage
and has been described by Dorothy Mermin as "a curiosity of Victorian
literature" and "a point of intersection between Victorian poetry and
the Victorian novel"; "in a very real sense novelistic", it is notable
for its "psychological realism" and "extreme subjectivity".
In 1861 he published 'Evan Harrington', a novel which deals with
class, manners and mimicry. It upset his father, living at the time in
Cape Town, who complained: "I am pained beyond expression, as I
consider it aimed at myself." The novel, according to the critic
Richard Cronin, "recklessly betrays family confidences" and
constituted a "treacherous burlesque of his own family's history, but
also ... [a] love letter to his family".
Second marriage
=================
In 1863, Meredith met Marie Vulliamy, a young woman of Anglo-French
stock whose father, Justin, was the successful, recently retired
proprietor of a wool business in Normandy. Attraction was immediate,
and by 1864 Meredith was writing to his friend Frederick Maxse that
"She has done me the honour to love me for some time". But from Mr
Vulliamy's perspective, the 36-year-old Meredith, a widower with an
11-year-old son, was not the ideal suitor for his 24-year-old
daughter, and Meredith had to provide character references, among whom
were Edward Peacock, Sir Alexander Duff-Gordon and John Chapman.
Mr Vulliamy was especially keen to understand the details of
Meredith's previous marriage, to establish both his character and
standing. In the end, his investigations "revealed nothing really
discreditable, and though the financial outlook was not bright, it was
not, with the £200 per annum that he would settle upon Marie,
altogether dark. And outweighing all objections was the simple fact
that his daughter was in love with Meredith. The only possible answer
was yes, and he gave it." The couple duly married in September 1864
and settled in Surrey, first in Norbiton and then, at the end of 1867,
at Flint Cottage near Box Hill.
Development of literary career
================================
Meredith continued to write poetry, often inspired by nature, but his
most notable publications following his second marriage were novels.
'Emilia in England' (1864) was a comedy at the expense of English
social climbers. 'Rhoda Fleming' (1865), which bore a resemblance to
George Eliot's novels, portrayed a country girl seduced by a callous
gentleman. 'Vittoria' (1867) was a sequel of sorts to 'Emilia in
England', though not comic. None of these met with success, but he
gained more recognition with 'The Adventures of Harry Richmond' (1871)
and the politically charged 'Beauchamp's Career' (1876). Three
novellas followed: 'The House on the Beach' (1877), 'The Case of
General Ople and Lady Camper' (also 1877), and 'The Tale of Chloe'
(1879).
He also attempted to complete a play, entitled 'The Sentimentalists',
which he had begun in 1862. He would never finish it, but after his
death J. M. Barrie chose to weave together the various drafts to
create a one-act comedy. This was performed alongside two short pieces
of Barrie's during a season of work at the Duke of York's Theatre in
1910 - a project driven by Harley Granville-Barker.
Meredith's keen understanding of comedy was articulated in his 'Essay
on Comedy' (1877). Originally delivered as a lecture at the London
Institution, it remains a reference work in the history of comic
theory, having influenced analysts of comedy such as Joseph Wood
Krutch. The essay was in effect preparation for 'The Egoist',
published in 1879, which applies some of his theories, in particular
his idea of comedy as "the ultimate civiliser". He followed it with
'The Tragic Comedians' (1880), which was written quickly and without
great conviction.
Popular success did not come easily to Meredith. 'The Egoist' was a
turning point inasmuch it brought him widespread critical recognition.
One of several of his works which highlight the subjugation of women
during the Victorian period, it was considered by W. E. Henley, who
reviewed it in at least four publications and possibly as many as
seven, to make him "a companion for Balzac and Richardson, an intimate
for Fielding and Cervantes". The critic for the 'New Quarterly
Magazine' commented, "We pay Mr Meredith a high compliment when we say
he enables the reader to understand what is meant by Comedy, in the
best and fullest sense of the word."
His most commercially rewarding novel was 'Diana of the Crossways',
published in 1885, which attracted notice because of its relationship
to real-life events involving Caroline Norton and Lord Melbourne.
Margaret Harris explains that "like many of Meredith's novels, 'Diana'
contains commentary on the aims and techniques of fiction, made
particularly potent by Diana's being herself a novelist dedicated to
'reading the inner as well as exhibiting the outer'". George Gissing
wrote to his brother, "By hook or crook, get hold of 'Diana of the
Crossways'. The book is right glorious. Shakespeare in modern
English", and William Cosmo Monkhouse wrote in the 'Saturday Review'
that "amongst all his intellectual and literary feats, Mr Meredith
has, perhaps, never accomplished one more striking". 'Diana' was his
first book to make an impression in America.
Influence in literary circles
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Meredith supplemented his often uncertain writer's income with a job
as a publisher's reader. His advice to Chapman & Hall made him
influential in the world of letters, and he was capable of reading as
many as ten manuscripts a week, though his judgement was not always
reliable; Ellen Wood's novel 'East Lynne' was rejected by Chapman
& Hall on his say-so yet went on, when published by Richard
Bentley, to be a bestseller.
His friends in the literary world included, at different times,
William and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Cotter
Morison, Leslie Stephen, Robert Louis Stevenson, George Gissing and J.
M. Barrie.
Gissing wrote in a letter to his brother Algernon that Meredith's
novels were "of the superlatively tough species". His contemporary Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle paid tribute to him in the short story "The
Boscombe Valley Mystery", in which Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson,
during the discussion of the case, "And now let us talk about George
Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until
to-morrow." Oscar Wilde in "The Art of Novel-Writing" reflected, "Ah,
Meredith! Who can define him? ... As a writer he has mastered
everything, except language ... Too strange to be popular, too
individual to have imitators, ... [he] stands absolutely alone."
In 1868 Meredith was introduced to Thomas Hardy by Frederic Chapman of
Chapman & Hall. Hardy had submitted his first novel, 'The Poor Man
and the Lady'. Meredith advised Hardy not to publish his book as it
would be attacked by reviewers and destroy his hopes of becoming a
novelist. Meredith felt the book was too bitter a satire on the rich,
and counselled Hardy to put it aside and write another "with a purely
artistic purpose" and more of a plot. Meredith spoke from experience;
his own first big novel, 'The Ordeal of Richard Feverel', was judged
so shocking that Mudie's circulating library had cancelled an order of
300 copies. Hardy continued in his attempts to publish the novel,
without success, though he clearly took Meredith's advice
seriously.Tomalin, Claire. 'Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man'. New
York: Penguin, 2007.
His books were translated into Japanese and influenced author Natsume
Sōseki.
Politics
==========
Meredith's politics were those of a Radical Liberal, and he was
friends with other Radicals such as Frederick Maxse, whom he met
around 1860, and John Morley, whom he first encountered in print, as
the 'Literary Gazette's' enraptured reviewer of 'Evan Harrington'.
Another politically active friend was W. T. Stead, who replaced Morley
as editor of 'The Pall Mall Gazette' and was renowned for his
campaigning journalism, in particular a crusade against child
prostitution. Stead shared with Meredith an aversion to war, a
loathing of the "foul fury of Jingoism" and "jingo-Imperialism"
periodically evident in the British press, a hostility to the
Russophobia then prevalent in Britain, and an appetite for greater
democracy.
Later life
============
Beginning in the 1880s, Meredith's interest in writing poetry
intensified again, and he was of the opinion that his poems would
prove more durable than his prose. In 1883 he published 'Poems and
Lyrics of the Joy of Earth', which contained substantial new pieces
such as "Melampus", "The Day of the Daughter of Hades", "Earth and
Man" and "The Woods of Westermain", along with pieces that had
previously appeared in periodicals, including "The Lark Ascending" and
an expanded version of his earlier "Love in the Valley". Admirers of
the volumes included Alice Meynell, W. P. Ker and Mark Pattison.
'Ballads and Poems of Tragic Life' (1887) brought together many of his
previously uncollected poems. Its poor reception, especially by W. E.
Henley, cemented Meredith's belief that there was a critical
conspiracy against him.
Nine of his novels were republished in 1885-6, priced at six shillings
each, which made them accessible to a wider audience, and from 1889
they appeared in an edition priced 3s. 6d.. Meredith was moved to joke
to James Payn, editor of the 'Cornhill Magazine', that his "submerged
head [was] strangely appearing above the waters in England".
He continued to publish new novels, including 'One of our Conquerors'
(1891), an experimental portrait of a troubled marriage, and 'Lord
Ormont and his Aminta' (1894), which depicts a woman breaking free
from a humiliating marriage and re-establishing her self-worth through
a new relationship. The latter contains a sketch of a school that
resembles the one he attended in Neuwied. 'The Amazing Marriage'
(1895), melodramatic yet closely concerned with modern questions of
psychology and gender, was the last of his novels to be published in
his lifetime; 'Celt and Saxon', an unfinished early work which took a
keen interest in the relationship between race and ideology, appeared
posthumously in 1910.
Marie died of throat cancer in 1885, lauded by Meredith as "the most
unpretending, brave and steadfast friend ever given for a mate". In
later life he was troubled by ailments which restricted his mobility.
Explanations for this have included locomotor ataxia and
osteoarthritis.
Before his death, Meredith was honoured from many quarters: in 1892 he
succeeded Tennyson as president of the Society of Authors; that year
there was an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews; and
at a dinner in his honour in 1895 Thomas Hardy and George Gissing paid
tribute to his achievements and his influence on them. Max Beerbohm's
caricature for 'Vanity Fair', published in 1896 and captioned "Our
First Novelist", was an indication of Meredith's standing at that
time; Beerbohm thought him, Shakespeare apart, the greatest English
literary figure.
In 1905 he was appointed to the Order of Merit, which had recently
been established by King Edward VII. He was invested with the Order at
Flint Cottage in December of that year, at a small ceremony performed
by the King's representative, Sir Arthur Ellis.
In 1909, he died at home in Box Hill. His ashes were buried alongside
Marie's in the cemetery at Dorking, Surrey.
In 1912 Constable & Co. published 'Letters of George Meredith' in
2 volumes.
Family
========
* Augustus Meredith died in 1876, aged 79, and his second wife Matilda
in 1885, aged 67. Both were buried in Southsea, having returned to
England from South Africa around 1863. In Augustus's final years,
George visited him from time to time, though only out of a sense of
duty.
* By his two wives, George Meredith had three children, outliving both
wives and one child.
* His relationship with Arthur, his son by Mary, was at first
affectionate, and they made a memorable trip to the Alps and Venice in
1861. In 1862, Arthur was enrolled at Norwich School, which was run by
a friend of Meredith's, Augustus Jessopp. Arthur would later be sent
to school in Switzerland, before continuing his studies in Stuttgart.
For most of Arthur's adult life, father and son were estranged. Arthur
found work in a linseed warehouse in France, but health problems
curtailed this, and he spent several years on Lake Garda, producing a
little journalism and attempting to write a book. His health collapsed
in 1886, and he relocated to Australia. He died of tuberculosis, not
long after returning from Australia, in September 1890.
* With his second wife, Marie, he had two children. Their son, William
Maxse (1865-1937), would edit Meredith's letters and achieve note in
the world of publishing. Their daughter, Marie Eveleen (1871-1933),
known as Mariette, married Henry Parkman Sturgis, an American-born
banker and politician 24 years her senior, who by his first wife Mary
(d. 1886) had six children.
* His stepdaughter Edith Nicolls, later Clarke, for more than 40 years
ran The National Training School Of Cookery. A pioneer of what came to
be known as "domestic science", she published several cookbooks and
received the MBE. She died in 1926.
* The first biography of Meredith was published in 1920 by Stewart
Marsh Ellis, his second cousin.
Literary style
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Meredith's style has attracted a great deal of comment, both
favourable and disapproving.
Early on, critics noted his indebtedness to two writers in particular:
Thomas Carlyle and Robert Browning. Stevenson notes that the triad
"soon became a critical cliché." Some critics felt that he was more
influenced by the former than the latter, including George Pierce
Baker, who asked: "May not Mr. Meredith be called the Carlyle of
fiction?"
His novels, far from being action-packed, are instead driven by what
he called "action of the mind", and the large amounts of dialogue have
led to their being dismissed as "talky". Critic Neil Roberts describes
"the often irritating but profoundly original world of Meredith's
novelistic art", noting that these are two sides of "the sense of the
'new'" in his work and that this is "still felt by readers
encountering Meredith today". Roberts argues that Meredith's use of
dialogue and multiple voices make him "a Bakhtinian novelist 'par
excellence'".
His prose, aphoristic and allusive, has often been seen as a barrier
to comprehension, with some critics arguing that the style, rather
than being a means to an end, serves as an end in itself. Oscar
Wilde's description of "chaos illumined by brilliant flashes of
lightning" has been echoed by many others. A recurring objection is
the mental effort required to decipher his meaning. "Readers," writes
Vanessa L. Ryan, "complained that Meredith made too constant an appeal
to thoughtfulness ... [and] charged his writing with too many ideas
and mental abstractions."
However, admirers since George Eliot have applauded the poetic
qualities of Meredith's prose. For Max Beerbohm, he "packs tight all
his pages with wit, philosophy, poetry, and psychological analysis".
Yet even an enthusiast as fervent as Beerbohm can concede that "His
obscurity, like that of Carlyle and Browning, is due less to extreme
subtlety than to the plethoric abundance of his ideas".
In a thesis published in Meredith's lifetime, Leah Durand Jones
commented that his style is "generally conceded to be more subtle and
abstruse, more complex and intricate than that of any other modern
writer": he "usually avoids the conventional", achieves "independence
of thought and expression" through the "brilliancy of his epigrams",
finds "analogies in the most unexpected places", and possesses a
"power of compression" which can disconcert readers, not least through
a "constant omission of pronouns, relatives, or even nouns and verbs"
that demands "swiftness of comprehension". More recently, Matthew
Sussman argues that Meredith's style exemplifies the virtue of
"fervidness," which synthesizes two opposing impulses in the author's
mind: "the first, identified with metaphor and epigram, gravitates
toward the philosophical intensity of poetic condensation, while the
second, identified with plotting and syntax, seeks the imaginative
freedom of discursive prose."
As a poet, Meredith has drawn both praise and criticism for his
innovation in metrical and stanzaic forms, along with his unorthodox
syntax and metaphors. But his poetry is more varied than many
assessments recognise; noting the tendency to overlook the pessimistic
poetry Meredith produced after 'Modern Love' and until the 1880s,
Arthur L. Simpson explains that "The contrast between the derivative
Romanticism of the early poems and the evolutionary naturalism of
those published after 1880 is striking", and notes, of Meredith's work
in the 1860s and 1870s, that "The tensions and polarities of the poems
of this period bear comparison to those in the poetry of the early
Tennyson, of Arnold, and of the Hopkins of the terrible sonnets."
Essays
========
*'Essay on Comedy' (1877)
Further reading
======================================================================
* Bartlett, Phyllis. 'George Meredith' (London, National Book
League/Longmans, 1963) - 'Writers and their Works' series, no. 161
*
* Clodd, Edward. "George Meredith (1828-1909)", in Clodd's 'Memories'
(London: Chapman and Hall, 1916),
[
https://archive.org/stream/memories00clodiala#page/138/mode/2up on p.
138-164].
* Dawson, William James. "George Meredith", in Dawson's 'The Makers of
English Fiction', 2nd edn (New York: F.H. Revell Co., 1905), on p.
191-212.
* Ellis, S. M. 'George Meredith: His Life and Friends in Relation to
his Work' (Grant Richards Ltd, London 1920).
[
https://archive.org/stream/georgemeredithhi00elli#page/n9/mode/2up
read here]
* Ellis, S. M. 'A Mid-Victorian Pepys. The Letters and Memoirs of Sir
William Hardman, M.A., F.R.G.S.' (Cecil Palmer, London 1923).
* Gretton, Mary Sturge. 'The Writings and Life of George Meredith: A
Centenary Study' (Oxford University Press, 1926).
*
* Johnson, Diane. 'The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and
Other Lesser Lives' (Alfred A. Knopf, 1972).
* Jones, Mervyn. 'The Amazing Victorian: A Life of George Meredith'
(London, Constable, 1999).
* Lindsay, Jack. 'George Meredith: His Life and Work' (London, The
Bodley Head, 1956).
* Photiades, Constantin. 'George Meredith: His Life, Genius and
Teaching' (New York, Scribners, 1913).
* Sassoon, Siegfried. 'Meredith' (Constable, London 1948).
* Sencourt, Robert E. 'The Life of George Meredith' (London, Chapman
& Hall, 1929).
* Stevenson, Lionel. 'The Ordeal of George Meredith' (New York:
Scribners, 1953).
* Williams, David. 'George Meredith: His Life and Lost Love' (London,
Hamish Hamilton, 1977).
External links
======================================================================
*
*
*
*
*[
http://www.literaryhistory.com/19thC/MEREDITH.htm Portal for
articles on George Meredith]
*[
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/meredith/biograph.html Biography
of George Meredith by Elvira Casal]
*[
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/henley/meredith.html W.E. Henley
on George Meredith]
*[
https://archive.org/stream/nationalmagazine23brayrich#page/272/mode/1up
"George Meredith: A Study"], by Leonie Gilman, 'National Magazine',
December 1905
*[
http://theotherpages.org/poems/poem-mn.html#meredith Meredith index
entry at Poets' Corner]
*[
http://www.poemhunter.com/george-meredith/ Poems by George Meredith]
*[
http://theotherpages.org/poems/meredi02.html 'Modern Love']
*[
https://web.archive.org/web/20071017213812/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/meredith/george/
The Works of George Meredith] at The University of Adelaide Library
* Archival material at
* George Meredith Collection. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book
and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
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