Background
John Forster was born on April 2, 1812, in Newcastle, United Kingdom. His father, who was a Unitarian and belonged to the junior branch of a good Northumberland family, was a cattle-dealer.
John Forster was born on April 2, 1812, in Newcastle, United Kingdom. His father, who was a Unitarian and belonged to the junior branch of a good Northumberland family, was a cattle-dealer.
After being well grounded in classics and mathematics at the grammar school of his native town, John Forster was sent in 1828 to Cambridge, but after only a month's residence he removed to London, where he attended classes at University College, and was entered at the Inner Temple.
John Forster published the work separately in 1840 with a Treatise on the Popular Progress in English History.
Its merits obtained immediate recognition, and Forster became a prominent figure in that distinguished circle of literary men which included Bulwer, Talfourd, Albany, Fonblanque, Landor, Carlyle, and Dickens.
For some years he edited the Foreign Quarterly Review; in 1846, on the retirement of Charles Dickens, he took charge for some months of the Daily News; and from 1847 to 1856 he edited the Examiner.
From 1836 onwards he contributed to the Edinburgh Quarterly and Foreign Quarterly Reviews a variety of articles, some of which were republished in two volumes of Biographical and Historical Essays (Г858).
In 1848 appeared his admirable Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith (revised in 1854).
Continuing his researches into English history under the early Stuarts, he published in 1860 the Arrest of the Five Members by Charles I. - A Chapter of English History rewritten, and The Debates on the Grand Remonstrance, with an Introductory Essay on English Freedom.
In 1868 appeared his Life of Landor, and, on the death of his friend Alexander Dyce, Forster undertook the publication of his third edition of Shakespeare.
For several years he had been collecting materials for a life of Swift, but he interrupted his studies in this direction to write his standard Life of Charles Dickens.
The first volume appeared in 1872, and the biography was completed in 1874.
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2010
