Meredith, George

Correspondence, 1891-1901, written by George Meredith to Henry Stephens Salt.

George Meredith was born in Portsmouth on 12 February 1828. He received his education at St Paul's School, Southsea and at the Moravian School at Neuwied on the Rhine, 1842-1844. Meredith returned to England in 1844, where he was articled to a solicitor in London, under whose encouragement Meredith began to write poetry. He contributed to Chambers Edinburgh Journal . In 1860 Meredith became a reader for the publishing company, Chapman and Hall. During his life he wrote poetry, seven novels and contributed essays to periodicals. After 1895 Meredith stopped writing prose, but continued to write poetry. His last collection of poems was published in 1901. In 1905 he was awarded the Order of Merit. George Meredith died on 18 May 1909.

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University of London Library, The Sterling library: a catalogue of the printed books and literary manuscripts collected by Sir Louis Sterling and presented by him to the University of London , Cambridge, (1954).

The New York Public Library, the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, USA, hold literary papers; the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, USA, has literary papers; Beinecke Library, Yale University, Connecticut, USA, contains papers and letters; Dartmouth College Library, New Hampshire, USA, holds literary papers; the Huntington Library, California, USA, has correspondence and literary manuscripts, 1849-1901 (Ref: NUC MS 62-349); Princeton University Library, New Jersey, contains papers; the Harry ransom Humanities Research Center Library, University of Texas at Austin, USA, holds papers; the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, has letters to Richard Burdon Haldane, Viscount Haldane, 1887-1905 (Ref: MSS 5903-6015); the British Library, London, contains letters to Sir William Hardman, 1861-1866 (Ref: Add MS 53789), and correspondence including family correspondence with Macmillans, 1883-1926 (Ref: Add MS 54965); the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, holds letters to various members of the Lewis family, 1898-1908 (Ref: MS Dep c835, 839, 842), and letters to James Thomson, 1879-1881 (Ref: MDD Don c73, d104-10, e36-50, f8-24, g1-7); West Sussex Record Office, Chichester, has letters mainly to Admiral Frederick Augustus Maxse, 1859-1901 (Ref: 199, 394-6); University College London contains letters to James Sully, 1892-1908 (Ref: MS ADD 158).

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