George
Reynolds, the son of a captain in the navy, was born at Sandwich on
23rd July 1814. He entered the Royal Military
College at Sandhurst in 1828 but he wanted to be a writer rather
than a soldier and left in 1830.
His first novel, The Youthful Imposter,
was published in 1835. This was followed by a book on literary criticism,
Modern Literature of France (1839).
Reynolds also worked as a journalist and in 1846 became editor of
the London Journal. He also edited
his own journal, Reynold's Miscellany,
a collection of short stories and poems.
In 1848 Reynolds became active in the Chartist
movement. He was one of the speakers at the Kennington
Common meeting on 13th March and at the National Convention he
represented Derby. At the assembly Reynolds
called for the Chartists to establish their own parliament in opposition
to the House of Commons. However, he was
a strong opponent of Fergus O'Connor and
Physical Force Chartism.
Reynolds started his own radical journal, Reynolds
Political Instructor and for a short period had a circulation
of 30,000 a week. When he closed the journal he replaced it with the
Reynolds's Weekly Newspaper. The
first edition was published on Sunday, 5th May, 1850 and he kept it
going for the rest of his life. George Reynolds died on 17th June
1879.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
