Joseph Henry Shorthouse
Encyclopedia
Biography
He was born at BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, educated at Grove School (Tottenham)
Grove School (Tottenham)
Grove House School was a Quaker school in Tottenham, United Kingdom.The school was established in 1828 as a boarding school for boys of the Quaker community, initially under Thomas Binns. One of its founders was Josiah Forster, who had attended the Quaker school his grandfather had founded in 1752,...
, and became a chemical manufacturer. Originally a Quaker, he joined the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. His first book, John Inglesant
John Inglesant
John Inglesant is a celebrated historical novel by Joseph Henry Shorthouse, published in 1881, and set mainly in the middle years of the 17th century....
, appeared in 1881, and at once made him famous. Though deficient in its structure as a story, and not appealing to the populace, it fascinates by the charm of its style and the "dim religious light" by which it is suffused, as well as by the striking scenes occasionally depicted. Shorthouse dedicated John Inglesant to Rawdon Levett
Levett
Levett is an Anglo-Norman territorial surname deriving from the village of Livet-en-Ouche, now Jonquerets-de-Livet, in Eure, Normandy. Ancestors of the earliest Levett family in England, the de Livets were lords of the village of Livet, and undertenants of the de Ferrers, among the most powerful of...
, his friend and fellow teacher at King Edward's School, Birmingham
King Edward's School, Birmingham
King Edward's School is an independent secondary school in Birmingham, England, founded by King Edward VI in 1552. It is part of the Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI in Birmingham, and is widely regarded as one of the most academically successful schools in the country, according to...
. His other novels, The Little Schoolmaster Mark, Sir Percival, The Countess Eve, and A Teacher of the Violin, though with some of the same characteristics, had no success comparable to his first. Shorthouse also wrote an essay, The Platonism
Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism...
of Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
.