George Meredith

Meredith, George 

Born Feb. 12, 1828, in Portsmouth; died May 18, 1909, at Box Hill, near London. English writer. Son of a tailor.

In Meredith’s first novel, The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859), the natural instincts of man come into conflict with the demands of society. All his later works, which developed in the mainstream of critical realism, were dominated by this conflict. Among his novels are Evan Harrington (1860), The Adventures of Harry Richmond (1870-71; Russian translation, 1870), Beauchamp’s Career (1874-75; Russian translation, 1876), The Egoist (1879; Russian translation, 1894), The Tragic Comedians (1880; Russian translation, 1912), and One of Our Conquerors (1891). The driving force in his novels is directed at the exposure of egotism and the hypocrisy of bourgeois England. At the end of his life Meredith devoted himself almost exclusively to poetry.

WORKS

Works, vols. 1-34. London, 1896-1911.
Works. Memorial edition, vols. 1-27. New York, 1909-11.
Letters, vols. 1-3. London, 1970.
In Russian translation:
Egoist. Moscow, 1970.

REFERENCES

Urnov, M. V. Na rubezhe vekov. Moscow, 1970.
Lindsay, J. G. Meredith, His Life and Work. London [1956].
Beach, J. W. The Comic Spirit in G. Meredith. New York, 1963.
Meredith Now: Some Critical Essays. London [1971].

I. B. KANTOROVICH