BLACK, WILLIAM, a skilful and favourite modern novelist, was trained as a journalist. Born in Glasgow in 1841, he was educated at various private schools. Mr Black was for a time editor of the London Review, and afterwards of the Examiner. His best known novels are: “In Silk Attire," 1868; "A Daughter of Heth,” 1871, the latter of which is now in its eleventh edition. His other novels are: "Love or Marriage,” "Kilmeny,” “The Monarch of Mincing Lane,” “Three Feathers,” "Lady Silverdale’s Sweetheart, and Other Stories,” "Strange Ad- ventures of a Phaeton,” 1873; a sequel to the latter is called "Green Pastures and Piccadilly"; "The Princess of Thule," 1873; "The Maid of Killeena, and Other Stories," 1874; "Madeap Violet,” 1877; and "Macleod of Dare," 1878. Mr Ruskin has expressed himself in terms of warm commendation of “The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton,” describing it “as a very delightful and wise book of its kind; very full of pleasant play, and deep and pure feeling; much interpretation of some of the best points of German character; and, last and least, with pieces of description in it which I should be glad, selfishly, to think inferior to what the public praise in 'Modern Painters'; I can only say, they seem to me quite as good.” [The Treasury of Modern Biography (1889), p. 508]
Black was a very entertaining author, and continued to maintain his popularity to the end of an active career, although he never regained the level of the best work of his middle period. The most remarkable of his later novels were Macleod of Dare (1878), the story of a highland chief who discovers London; Sunrise (1880), a controversial picture of international socialism; and Judith Shakespeare (1884), a romance about the dramatist's daughter. He also wrote the study on Goldsmith in the English Men of Letters series (1878). A collected edition of his works in twenty-six volumes appeared between 1892 and 1894. [Richard Garnett (2004)]
Biographical Material
Novels
- An Introduction to Black's Three Feathers
- George Du Maurier's Illustrations of Black's Three Feathers (1874-75)
Bibliography
Garnett, Richard, and S. R. J. Baudry. "Black, William (1841–1898), journalist and novelist." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Web. 23 September 2004.
Reid, Thomas Wemyss. William Black, Novelist. London: Cassell, 1902. Internet Archive, from a copy in the University of California Libraries. Web. 19 January 2025.
The Treasury of Modern Biography: A Gallery of Literary Sketches of Eminent Men and Women of the Nineteenth Century. Compiled and selected by Robert Cochrane. Edinburgh: W.P. Nimmo, Hay, & Mitchell, 1889. Google Books. Free ebook.
Created 16 January 2025