He was born at Portsmouth and educated at King's College, London, and Cambridge, was for a few years a professor at Mauritius, but a breakdown in health compelled him to resign, and he returned to England and took the duties of Secretary to the Palestine Exploration Fund, which he held 1868-85. He published in 1868Studies in French Poetry. Three years later he began his collaboration with James Rice. Among their joint productions are Ready-money Mortiboy (1872), and the Golden Butterfly (1876), both, especially the latter, very successful. This connection was brought to an end by the death of Rice in 1882. Thereafter B. continued to write voluminously at his own hand, his leading novels being All in a Garden Fair, Dorothy Forster (his own favourite), Children of Gibeon, and All Sorts and Conditions of Men. The two latter belonged to a series in which he endeavoured to arouse the public conscience to a sense of the sadness of life among the poorest classes in cities. In this crusade Besant had considerable success, the establishment of The People's Palace in the East of London being one result. In addition to his work in fiction B. wrote largely on the history and topography of London. His plans in this field were left unfinished: among his books on this subject is London in the 18th Century.
Other works among novels are My Little Girl, With Harp and Crown, This Son of Vulcan, The Monks of Thelema, By Celia's Arbour, and The Chaplain of the Fleet, all with Rice; and The Ivory Gate, Beyond the Dreams of Avarice, The Master Craftsman, The Fourth Generation, etc., alone. London under the Stuarts, London under the Tudors are historical.
SIR WALTERBESANT (1836-1901), English author, was born at Portsmouth, on the 14th of August 1836, third son of William Besant of that town.
Sir WalterBesant practised many branches of literary art with success, but he is most widely known for his long succession of novels, many of which have enjoyed remarkable popularity.
Besant undertook a series of important historical and archaeological volumes, dealing with the associations and development of the various districts of London - of which the most important was A Survey of London, unfortunately left unfinished, which was intended to do for modern London what Stow did for the Elizabethan city.
Besant's lecture at the Royal Institution--the original form of his pamphlet--appears to indicate that many persons are interested in the art of fiction and are not indifferent to such remarks as those who practise it may attempt to make about it.
Besant has set an excellent example in saying what he thinks, for his part, about the way in which fiction should be written, as well as about the way in which it should be published; for his view of the "art," carried on into an appendix, covers that too.
Besant demands for the work of the novelist may be represented, a trifle less abstractly, by saying that he demands not only that it shall be reputed artistic, but that it shall be reputed very artistic indeed.
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