William Black
BiographyWilliam Black (November 13, 1841–December 10, 1898) was a novelist born in Glasgow, Scotland, whose novels were immensely popular during his lifetime, however did not last in fame and popularity into the 20th century.
He was born to James Black and his second wife Caroline Conning, and educated to be a landscape painter, a training that influenced his literary style. As a writer he became known for detailed, atmospheric descriptions of landscapes and seascapes. At the age of 23 he went to London, having had some experience with Glasgow journalism, and joined the staff of the Morning Star and later the Daily News, of which he became assistant-editor. He also wrote a weekly serial in The Graphic. During the Austro-Prussian War he acted as a war correspondent. His first novel, James Merle, appeared in 1864 and had little success. He later disowned it and reputedly bought copies to destroy them. Two further early novels, Love or Marriage (1868) and The Monarch of Mincing Lane (1871), did little to advance his career, but the publication of A Daughter of Heth in 1871 at once established his popularity. In 1874 A Princess of Thule was another big success, later adapted into a musical play by a young L. Frank Baum. From the following year Black devoted himself wholly to fiction. Several collections of short stories and a further 22 novels followed; the last, Wild Eelin in 1898, just before his death.
Black’s first wife, Augustus Wenzel, died in 1866 of a fever contracted not long after the birth of their son, Martin. They had only been married since April of 1865. Martin then died in 1871. Black first met his second wife, Eva Simpson, daughter of Wharton Simpson, a fellow journalist and fellow member of Whitefriars Club, in 1869. He saw her again in 1872 and used her as the basis for Bell in The Phaeton. They were married in April 1874 and she was still alive when Wemyss Reid, who had offered Black a contributor’s role on the Leeds Mercury, published his biography. From 1879 until his death he lived in Brighton.
Bibliography (wildly incomplete)
James Merle (1864)
Love or Marriage (1868)
The Monarch of Mincing Lane (1871)
A Daughter of Heth (1871)
The Strange Adventures of a Phaeton (1872)
A Princess of Thule (1874)
Madcap Violet (1876)
Macleod of Dare (1879)
Sunrise (1881)
Shandon Bells (1883)
Yolande (1883)
Judith Shakespeare (1884)
That Beautiful Wretch (1885)
The New Prince Fortunatus (1890)
Wild Eelin (1898)
Other links
The Atlantic
At the Circulating Library: A Database of Victorian Fiction
Wikipedia