The Essential Works of William Harrison Ainsworth. William Harrison Ainsworth

The Essential Works of William Harrison Ainsworth - William Harrison Ainsworth


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Chapter 1. A Morning Ride

       Chapter 2. A Gipsy Encampment

       Chapter 3. Sybil

       Chapter 4. Barbara Lovel

       Chapter 5. The Inauguration

       Chapter 6. Eleanor Mowbray

       Chapter 7. Mrs. Mowbray

       Chapter 8. The Parting

       Chapter 9. The Philter

       Chapter 10. Saint Cyprian’s Cell

       Chapter 11. The Bridal

       Chapter 12. Alan Rookwood

       Chapter 13. Mr. Coates

       Chapter 14. Dick Turpin

       BOOK 4. THE RIDE TO YORK

       Chapter 1. The Rendezvous at Kilburn

       Chapter 2. Tom King

       Chapter 3. A Surprise

       Chapter 4. The Hue and Cry

       Chapter 5. The Short Pipe

       Chapter 6. Black Bess

       Chapter 7. The York Stage

       Chapter 8. Roadside Inn

       Chapter 9. Excitement

       Chapter 10. The Gibbet

       Chapter 11. The Phantom Steed

       Chapter 12. Cawood Ferry

       BOOK 5. THE OATH

       Chapter 1. The Hut on Thorne Waste

       Chapter 2. Major Mowbray

       Chapter 3. Handassah

       Chapter 4. The Dower of Sybil

       Chapter 5. The Sarcophagus

       L’Envoy

      MEMOIR

       Table of Contents

      William Harrison Ainsworth was born in King Street, Manchester, February 4, 1805, in a house that has long since been demolished. His father was a solicitor in good practice, and the son had all the advantages that educational facilities could afford. He was sent to the Manchester grammar-school, and in one of his early novels has left an interesting and accurate picture of its then condition, which may be contrasted with that of an earlier period left by the “English opium-eater.” At sixteen, a brilliant, handsome youth, with more taste for romance and the drama than for the dry details of the law, he was articled to a leading solicitor of Manchester. The closest friend of his youth was a Mr. James Crossley, who was some years older, but shared his intellectual taste and literary enthusiasm. A drama written for private theatricals, in his father’s house was printed in Arliss’s Magazine, and he also contributed to the Manchester Iris, the Edinburgh Magazine, and the London Magazine. He even started a periodical, which received the name of The Bœotian, and died at the sixth number. Many of the fugitive pieces of these early days were collected in volumes now exceedingly rare: “December Tales” (London, 1823), which is not wholly from his pen; the “Works of Cheviot Tichburn” (London, 1822; Manchester, 1825), dedicated to Charles Lamb; and “A Summer Evening Tale” (London, 1825).

      “Sir John Chiverton” appeared in 1826, and for forty years was regarded as one of his early works; but Mr. John Partington Aston has also claimed to be its author. In all probability, both of these young men joined in the production of the novel which attracted the attention of Sir Walter Scott. On the death of his father, in 1824, Ainsworth went to London to finish his legal education, but whatever intentions he may have formed of humdrum study and determined attention to the details of a profession in which he had no interest, were dissipated by contact with the literary world of the metropolis. He made the acquaintance of Mr. John Ebers, who at that time combined the duties of manager of the Opera House with the business of a publisher. He it was who issued “Sir John Chiverton,” and the verses forming its dedication are understood to have been addressed to Anne Frances (“Fanny”) Ebers, whom Ainsworth married October 11, 1826. Ainsworth had then to decide upon a career, and, acting upon the suggestion of Ebers, his father-in-law, he began business as a publisher; but after an experience of about eighteen months he abandoned it. In this brief interval he introduced the Hon. Mrs. Norton, and Ude, the cook, to the discerning though unequal admiration of the British public. He was introduced to Sir Walter Scott, who wrote the “Bonnets of Bonnie Dundee” for an annual issued by him. Ainsworth gave him twenty guineas for it, which Sir Walter accepted, but laughingly handed over to the little daughter of Lockhart, in whose London house they had met. Ainsworth’s literary aspirations still burned with undiminished ardor, and several plans were formed only to be abandoned, and when, in the summer of 1830, he visited Switzerland and Italy, he was as far as ever from the fulfilment of his desires. In 1831 he visited Chesterfield and began the novel of “Rookwood,” in which he successfully applied the method of Mrs. Radcliffe to English scenes and characters. The finest passage is that relating Turpin’s ride to York, which is a marvel of descriptive writing. It was written, apparently in a glow of inspiration, in less than a day and a half. “The feat,” he says, “for feat it was, being the composition of a hundred novel pages in less than twenty-four hours, was


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