Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Journalist, poet, and biographer. Pseudonym: “Guy Roslyn.” Alternative signature: “George Smith.” Born in Ovenden, Yorkshire. Educated at the British Lancastrian School, Halifax. Worked as a journalist and editor for The Globe and The Echo in London from 1865 to 1876. Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, The Fortnightly Review, and The Cornhill Magazine. His memoir of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in the ninth edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica, led to a close friendship with Robert Browning. Wrote biographies of Shelley, Gladstone, John Bright, and Queen Victoria. Author of Poets and Novelists. A Series of Literary Studies (1875), George Eliot in Derbyshire (1876), History of the English Parliament (1892). Poetry volumes include Daphnis the Unfaithful (1870), Village Verses (1876), Throughout the Year: Poems Old and New (1886). Married twice: first to Annie Hodson, who died in 1868, and then to Julia Hannah (née Timmis) in 1871. Biographical information: ODNB. (JS, CC)