Robert Bage (1728 - September 1, 1801), Englishnovelist, born in Derbyshire, was the son of a paper-maker and was himself a papier. It was not until he was 53 that he took to literature; but in the 15 years following he produced six novels, of which Sir Walter Scott said that "strong mind, playful fancy, and extensive knowledge are everywhere apparent." Scott included Mount Henneth (1781), Barham Downs (1784), and Man as he is (1792) in his series of Ballantyne novels.
Bage was brought up as a Quaker, but he became a philosophical and religious radical after the French Revolution. He advocated democracy and equality (the abolition of the peerage), as well as the abolition of institutional religion.
The work for which he is chiefly read today is Hermsprong or Man as he is not. Although regarded as radical at the time, the novel is somewhat disjointed. The first section of the novel is a wit novel with a strong philosophical content. However, it then turns to a sentimental novel form and follows a romance. The philosophical challenge of the novel is that it concerns an American who has been raised entirely by American Indians, without either formal education or religion. With only nature to teach him, he sees through the hypocrisy of society and English manners. It is notable for pursuing the theme of the noble savage and, in particular, nativism. When the novel exchanges social satire for a love story, however, it loses any power to debunk educational and classist abuses.
RobertBage, the last of this quartette, is differentiated from them by the fact that he is not unfrequently amusing, while the others seldom succeed in causing amusement.
Bage, a quaker who became a free-thinker, was an active man of business, and did not take to novel-writing till he was advanced in life.
Bage, in fact, when he leaves revolutionary politics and ethics on one side, and indulges what Scott did not scruple to call his “genius,” can give us people who are more of this world than the folk of almost any of his contemporaries in novel-writing, except Fanny Burney earlier, and Maria Edgeworth later.
On the 24 Dec 1793, Thomas Bage, Jr., was married to Elizabeth Hart by the Rev'd Samuel Butler, rector of Southwark Parish Episcopal Church.
William E. Bage, a plasterer and farmer of Central Township, Jackson Co., Mo., was born in Washington, D. C., in 1819, the eldest of ten children born to William and Mary (Foxton) Bage.
Bage's father was also an Englishman by birth, but when a young man came to the United States, locating in Alexandria, Va. He superintended the plastering of the first public building in the City of Washington.
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