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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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George Meredith
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(1828–1909) Novelist and poet, whose first successful works were written after his wife left him in 1857. Both the novel The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) and the sequence of poems Modern Love (1862) start with the pain of failed love; the novel, following its young hero through successive relationships, caused initial offence by its frankness. The Egoist (1879) has as its central character a conceited aristocrat, Sir Willoughby Patterne, who cannot understand why he is jilted by a succession of young women who were at first drawn to him. Meredith's most popular novel, Diana of the Crossways (1885), recounts the adventures of the attractive and impulsive Diana Warwick in the world of politics. One of his poems, The *Lark Ascending, has become better known in a wordless form, for it inspired the 'romance' by Vaughan Williams.
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