AINSWORTH,
WILLIAM HARRISON (1805-1882), English novelist, son of Thomas
Ainsworth, solicitor, was born at Manchester on the 4th of
February 1805. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and
articled to the firm of which his father was a member, proceeding to
London in 1824 to complete his legal training at the Inner Temple. At
the age of twenty-one he married a daughter of John Ebers the publisher,
and started in his father-in-law’s line of business. This, however,
soon proved unprofitable and he decided to attempt literary work. A
novel called Sir John Chiverton, in which he appears to have had a
share, had attracted the praise of Sir Walter Scott, and this
encouragement decided him to take up fiction as a career. In 1834 he
published Rookwood, which had an immediate success, and thenceforth he
was always occupied with the compilation of “historical” novels. He
published about forty such stories, of which the best-known are Jack
Sheppard (1839), The Tower Oglondon (1840), Guy Fawkes (1841), Old St
Paul’s (1841) and Windsor Castle (1843). He edited Bentley’s
Miscellany, in which Jack Sheppard was published as a serial, and in
1842 he became proprietor of Ainsworth’s Magazine. In 1853 it ceased to
appear, and Ainsworth bought the New Monthly Magazine. He continued his
literary activity until his death, but his later stories were less
striking than the earlier ones. He died at Reigate on the 3rd
of January 1882 and was buried at Kensal Green. Ainsworth had a lively
talent for plot, and his books have many attractive qualities. The
glorification of Dick Turpin in Rookwood, and of Jack Sheppard in the
novel that bears his name, caused considerable outcry among straitlaced
elders. In his later novels Ainsworth confined himself to heroes less
open to criticism. His style was not without archaic affectation and
awkwardness, but when his energies were aroused by a striking situation
he could be brisk, vigorous and impressive. He did a great deal to
interest the less educated classes in the historical romances of their
country, and his tales were invariably instructive, clean and manly.
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