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British novelist William Harrison Ainsworth's career lasted so long (60 years) and his output was so prolific that some critics have termed him "the king of historical potboilers". His most lasting of the many books he wrote is probably the series about the infamous highwayman Dick Turpin, which was so popular that there was a successful series of films featuring him in the 1920s.
Harrison was born in Manchester, England, in 1805. He picked up his taste for history and writing as a youngster. His father was a criminal-defense attorney, and as a child William would sit fascinated as his father told tales of the daring highwaymen and bandits he defended. His father also moved in Manchester's social circles, and young William met such literary figures as Charles Dickens and Edward George Bulwer-Lytton at the family estate. The youngster began writing melodramas and plays while still in grammar school, and even set up his own theater in the basement of his parents' home where he would stage these productions, making all the costumes, props and scenery himself. He also began submitting poems and short stories to local literary magazines, and began getting published in such publications as "The New Monthly Magazine", "London Magazine" and "Edinburgh Magazine".
In the early 1820s he struck up a friendship with noted historian Charles Lamb. In 1824 his father died and Ainsworth, now an attorney, took over his father's law firm in London, and stayed there for two years. He and a friend, John Partington, co-wrote a romance novel, "Sir John Chiverton", which became quite popular and attracted the attention of writer Sir Walter Scott, who wrote Ainsworth to request a meeting. Ainsworth married Fanny Ebers, the daughter of a prominent book publisher, in 1826. He began helping his father-in-law to run his business, but soon tired of that life and set up his own law practice. However, he still kept his hand in the writing game, and in 1834 his novel "Rookwood" became a national best-seller. cementing his reputation as an author and giving him the financial security to devote himself full-time to writing.
His novel "Jack Sheppard" (1839) was also a success, both critically and financially. In addition to writing, Ainsworth was also editor of "Bentley's Miscellany" magazine from 1840-41. In 1846 he attended a dinner given at the home of Charles Dickens--with whom he had now become close friends--and Dickens gave him a personally signed copy of his new novel, "The Haunted Man". In 1842 Ainsworth began his own literary magazine, "Ainsworth's Magazine", while still working as editor of both "Bentley's Magazine" and "The New Monthly Magazine". Unfortunately, he was forced to terminate his own magazine in 1854 for financial reasons but bought "Bentley's Mischellany" (and was forced to sell that in 1868). He was still writing novels and they were selling, but not in the numbers that his earlier ones had, and he soon moved from the glitz and glamour of London to the more staid (and less expensive) seaside community of Brighton. His financial situation didn't improve much, though, and he eventually moved from Brighton to lower-rent Tunbridge Wells in 1867. He soon had to sell his magazines, and even some of his family property, to stave off financial ruin. He was eventually forced to work for what was called a "penny dreadful" magazine, "Bow Bells" (penny-dreadfuls were adaptations and severely edited versions of major British works, which were then sold--without even covers--for a penny apiece), to make a living.
He died at Reigate, Surrey, England, on Jan. 3, 1882.
