George Meredith

George Meredith OM
Meredith in 1893 by George Frederic Watts
Born	(1828-02-12)12 February 1828 Portsmouth, Hampshire, England
Died	18 May 1909(1909-05-18) (aged 81) Box Hill, Surrey, England
Literary movement	Victorian literature
Notable works	Modern Love
Spouses	Mary Ellen Peacock (1849–1861) Marie Vulliamy (1864–1886)
Children	3
Signature

George Meredith OM (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".^[1] 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.^[2]