Charles Gibbon

Charles Gibbon (1843–1890) was a British novelist specialising in popular romances.[1]

Life

Gibbon was born in the Isle of Man, and moved with his parents to Glasgow at an early age. After receiving elementary education there, he became a clerk, and then before age 17 found a position on a local newspaper. During Charles Kean's visit to Glasgow in 1860, Gibbon wrote an account of his acting, and Kean made his acquaintance. A year or so later Gibbon moved to London.[2]

Ill-health compelled Gibbon to spend his later years on the east coast of England, and he died at Great Yarmouth on 15 August 1890. He was married and left a family.[2]

Works

A three-volume novel Dangerous Connexions was published by Gibbon in 1864, which had a second edition in 1875. The Dead Heart followed in 1865, and Gibbon went on to publish some thirty novels, Robin Gray (1869; other editions 1872 and 1877) and For Lack of Gold (1871; other editions 1873 and 1877). Gibbon's Scottish novels have been compared with those of William Black.[2] Ten novels featured "Detective Dier", a character based on Edmund Reid, who was a friend of Gibbon's.[3] Gibbon's book The Braes of Yarrow (1881) is a historical novel about Scotland after the Battle of Flodden.[4] By Mead and Stream (1884) is a rural romance.[1]

Gibbon also edited The Casquet of Literature (6 vols. 1873-4), and wrote a Life (2 vols. 1878) of George Combe, in whose theories he was interested.[2]

Notes
  1. XIX Century Fiction, Part I, A–K (Jarndyce, Bloomsbury, 2019).
  2. Lee, Sidney, ed. (1901). "Gibbon, Charles (1843–1890)" . Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  3. Haia Shpayer-Makov (29 September 2011). The Ascent of the Detective: Police Sleuths in Victorian and Edwardian England. Oxford University Press. p. 371 note 81. ISBN 978-0-19-957740-8.
  4. Nield, Jonathan (1925), A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales. G. P. Putnam's Sons, p. 67.

Attribution:

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1901). "Gibbon, Charles (1843–1890)". Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co.


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