Besant, Walter (1836-1901)

English writer. He wrote novels in partnership with James Rice (1843-1882), and produced an attack on the social evils of the East End of London, All Sorts and Conditions of Men (1882), and an unfinished Survey of London (1902-12). He was the brother-in-law of the feminist activist Annie Besant. Knighted in 1895.

Besant was born in Portsmouth and studied at Cambridge. In 1884 he founded the Society of Authors to protect the rights of new writers; he was its chair until 1892.

In collaboration with Rice he wrote Ready-Money Mortiboy (1872), The Golden Butterfly (1876), The Monks of Thelema (1878), By Celia's Arbour (1878), and The Chaplain of the Fleet (1881). The influence of Charles Dickens is apparent, especially in the vigour with which he described social injustice and degrading conditions. The establishment of the East End Institute, known as the People's Palace, was a direct result of his powerful All Sorts and Conditions of Men. Among other novels are Dorothy Forster (1884), Armorel of Lyonesse (1890), and Beyond the Dreams of Avarice (1895).

Besides fiction, he wrote The French Humorists (1873), Rabelais (1879), and biographies of the London mayor Dick Whittington, the explorer Captain Cook, and the writer Richard Jefferies.