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At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: James Gregor Grant

Author: James Gregor Grant (1799–1875)

Biography: James Gregor Grant was born in 1799 in Liverpool, the son of actor James Grant and Clementina Sobieska Jones. As a youth, he attended Merchant Taylors' School, worked as an actor, and entered several careers before settling on literature. He lived the majority of his life in Sunderland. He was a landscape artist, poet, dramatist, novelist, and critic of some note, as well as an able lecturer on literary and other topics. His works included the historical novel Rufus: or, The Red King (1838), the play Harold the Dauntless (performed 1840), and Madonna Pia, and Other Poems (1848). For a time, he was a lecturer for the Northern Union of Mechanics' Institutes. Grant contributed to periodicals throughout the British Isles, edited the Durham Advertiser for a time, and wrote a series of stories for the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle in 1868–69. Grant married and had two daughters. He died in London in 1875 a few years after moving south.

Author Tags:

References: British Census (1851, 1861, 1871); Merchant Taylors' School Archives; Notes and Queries (15 June 1895)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Rufus: or, The Red King. A Romance.  3 vol.  London: Saunders and Otley, 1838.