Walter Besant

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Walter Besant , wood engraving by Gustav Kruell , 1890

Sir Walter Besant (born August 14, 1836 in Portsmouth , England ; † June 9, 1901 in Hamstead , London , England) was an English social reformer and writer who mainly drew attention to the urban misery. In addition to essays and historical treatises, he wrote numerous novels. His brother Frank was married to the suffragette and theosophist Annie Besant . Besant belonged to the Freemasons .

Life

After visiting King's College London and Christ's College in Cambridge (graduation 1859) Besant worked as a mathematics teacher.

In 1861 he took over a professorship at the Royal College in Mauritius , but turned his back on the island in the Indian Ocean after six years because of health problems. From 1868 to 1885 he was secretary of the London-based Palestine Exploration Fund . He presented his first publication in 1868 with studies on French poetry. In 1871 Besant was admitted to the bar by the Lincoln's Inn Bar. In the same year he began working with the writer James Rice , who sprang up some cheerful entertainment novels that were surprisingly successful. This collaboration ended with Rice's death in 1882. In the following, Besant wrote socially critical novels under his own flag, which made a difference. From All in the garden fair (1883), for example, it is said that Rudyard Kipling certified this book in Something of Myself that it had moved him to leave India and become a writer. With novels like All Sorts an Conditions of Men (1882) or Children of Gibeon (1886), Bresant avowedly sought to shake up the public conscience in the face of the misery in the slums of British cities. A practical success, for example, was the opening of a People's Palace in East London. In other publications Besant devoted himself to the history and topography of the British capital.

Since 1873 he understood and worked as a Freemason . In 1886 he suggested the establishment of scientifically oriented lodge Quatuor Coronati Lodge of where it acts as treasurer. He was also treasurer of the Atlantic Union , an association that was concerned with improving social relations between British and North Americans.

In 1895 he was beaten to Knight Bachelor ("Sir").

bibliography

Novels and short stories
  • Ready-Money Mortiboy (3 vols., 1872, with James Rice)
  • My Little Girl (3 vols., 1873, with James Rice)
  • With Harp and Crown (3 vols., 1875, with James Rice)
  • The Case of Mr. Lucraft and other tales (2 vols., 1876, with James Rice)
  • The Golden Butterfly (3 vols., 1876, with James Rice)
  • This Son of Vulcan (3 vols., 1876, with James Rice)
  • By Celia's Arbor: A tale of Portsmouth town (3 vols., 1878, with James Rice)
  • The Monks of Thelema (3 vols., 1878, with James Rice)
  • "Twas in Trafalgar's Bay" and other stories (2 vols., 1879, with James Rice)
  • The Seamy Side (3 vols., 1880, with James Rice)
  • The Chaplain of the Fleet (3 vols., 1881, with James Rice)
  • All Sorts and Conditions of Men (3 vols., 1882)
  • The Revolt of Man (1882)
  • All in a Garden Fair (3 vols., 1883)
  • The Captains' Room etc. (3 vols., 1883)
  • Dorothy Forster (3 vols., 1884)
  • Uncle Jack & c (1885)
  • Children of Gibeon (3 vols., 1886)
  • The Ten Years' Tenant and other stories (3 vols., 1886, with James Rice)
  • The World Went Very Well Then (3 vols., 1887)
  • Mr. Paulus (3 vols., 1888)
  • The Inner House (1888)
  • Doubts of Dives (1889)
  • For Faith and Freedom (3 vols., 1889)
  • The Bell of St. Paul's (3 vols., 1889)
  • To Call Her Mine & c (1889)
  • Armorel of Lyonesse (3 vols., 1890)
  • The Holy Rose & c (1890)
  • St. Katherine's by the Tower (3 vols., 1891)
  • Verbena, Camellia, Stephanotis, & c (1892)
  • The Ivory Gate (3 vols., 1893)
  • The Rebel Queen (3 vols., 1893)
  • Beyond the Dreams of Avarice (1895)
  • In Deacon's Orders & c (1895)
  • The City of Refuge (3 vols., 1896)
  • The Master Craftsman (2 vols., 1896)
  • A Fountain Sealed (1897)
  • The Changeling (1898)
  • Alfred (1899)
  • The Orange Girl (1899)
  • For Britain's Soldiers (1900, with WL Alden)
  • The Alabaster Box (1900)
  • The Fourth Generation (1900)
  • The Lady of Lynn (1901)
  • A Five Years' Tryst and other stories (1902)
  • No Other Way (1902)
Non-fiction in general
  • Bourbon 'Journal, August 1863 (1933)
  • Studies in Early French Poetry (1868)
  • Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin (1871, with EH Palmer)
  • The French Humourists from the 12th to the 19th century (1873)
  • Constantinople. A sketch of its history from its foundation to its conquest by the Turks in 1453 (1879, with WJB)
  • Gaspard de Coligny. The New Plutarch (1879)
  • Rabelais (1879)
  • Sir Richard Whittington, Lord Mayor of London (1881, with James Rice)
  • The Life and Achievements of Edward Henry Palmer (1883)
  • The Art of Fiction (1884)
  • Fifty Years Ago (1888)
  • The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies (1888)
  • Captain Cook. English Men of Action (1890)
  • The Queen's Reign and its commemoration (1897)
  • The Pen and the Book (1899)
  • Autobiography (1902)
  • As we are and as we may be (1903)
  • Essays and Historiettes (1903)
  • The Story of King Alfred (1912)
Non-fiction on London
  • London (1892)
  • London (1894)
  • Westminster (1895)
  • South London (1899)
  • East London (1901)
  • London in the Eighteenth Century (1902)
  • Holborn and Bloomsbury (1903, with GE Mitton)
  • London in the Time of the Stuarts (1903)
  • The Strand District (1903, with GE Mitton)
  • The Thames (1903)
  • London in the Time of the Tudors (1904)
  • Medieval London (2 vols., 1906)
  • Early London: prehistoric, Roman, Saxon, and Norman (1908)
  • Shoreditch and the East End (1908)
  • London in the Nineteenth Century (1909)
  • London. City (1910)
  • London, North of the Thames (1911)
  • London, South of the Thames (1912)
Translated short stories
  • The Case of Mr Lucraft (1876, in: The Case of Mr Lucraft and Other Tales , with James Rice)
    • English: a blessed appetite. In: Walter Spiegl and Ingrid Spiegl (eds.): Ullstein Kriminalmagazin 15. Ullstein Krimi # 1243, 1969.
  • The Ten Years 'Tenant (1886, in: The Ten Years' Tenant and other stories , with James Rice)
    • English: The marriage record holder: Fantastic novel from Queen Victoria's time. Lindenstruth, Giessen 2008, ISBN 978-3-934273-61-0 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harry S. Truman, William R. Denslow: 10,000 Famous Freemasons from A to J Part One. 1957, ISBN 1417975784 .
  2. ^ Object of Atlantic Union. In: New York Times , June 5, 1900.
  3. ^ William Arthur Shaw: The Knights of England. Volume 2, Sherrat & Hughes, London 1906, p. 396.
personal data
SURNAME Besant, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English social reformer and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1836
PLACE OF BIRTH Portsmouth , England
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1901
Place of death Hamstead , London , England