See caption
Portrait by Daniel Maclise, c. 1834
Wikimedia Commons

William Harrison Ainsworth
English historical novelist, at one time considered a rival to Charles Dickens. (4 February 1805 – 3 January 1882) was an English historical novelist, at the height of his popularity in the 1840s considered to be a serious rival to Charles Dickens. A particular feature of Ainsworth’s novels is their attention to historical detail, but with the addition of supernatural elements characteristic of the Gothic tradition.

Works are listed in order of their date of first publication.[1]

  • December Tales (1823)
  • Sir John Chiverton (1826) , in collaboration with J. P. Aston
  • Rookwood (1834)
  • Crichton (1837)
  • Jack Sheppard (1839)
  • The Tower of LondonNovel by the English author William Harrison Ainsworth, first published in 1840, centred on the events following the death of King Edward VI and the subsequent nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey as Queen of England. (1840)
  • Guy Fawkes; or, The Gunpowder TreasonFirst of Ainsworth's seven Lancashire novels, first published in serialised form in 1840 and then as a three-volume set in 1841, based in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. (1841)
  • Old Saint Paul’s (1841)
  • The Miser’s Daughter (1842)
  • Windsor Castle (1843)
  • Saint James’s; or, The Court of Queen Anne (1844)
  • James the Second; or, The Revolution of 1688 (1848)
  • The Lancashire WitchesNovel by William Harrison Ainsworth, first published in 1848. Based on the true story of the Pendle witches, it is the only one of his forty novels that has never been out of print. (1849)
  • Auriol (1850)
  • The Flitch of Bacon; or, The Custom of Dunmow (1854)
  • The Star-Chamber (1854)
  • The Spendthrift (1857)
  • The Life and Adventures of Mervyn Clitheroe (1858)
  • The Combat of the Thirty (1859)
  • Ovingdean Grange (1860)
  • The Constable of the Tower (1861)
  • The Lord Mayor of London; or, City Life in the Last Century (1862)
  • Cardinal Pole; or, The Days of Philip & Mary (1863)
  • The Projector (1864)
  • The Spanish Match; or, Charles Stuart at Madrid (1865)
  • The Constable de Bourbon (1866)
  • Old Court (1867)
  • Myddleton Pomfret (1867)
  • Hilary St Ives (1870)
  • Talbot Harland (1870)
  • The South-Sea Bubble (1871)
  • Tower Hill (1871)
  • Boscobel: or, The Royal Oak. A tale of the year 1651 (1895)
  • The Good Old Times (1873). Reissued as The Manchester Rebels in 1874.
  • Merry England: or, Nobles and Serfs (1874)
  • The Goldsmith’s Wife (1875)
  • Preston Fight: or, The Insurrection of 1715 (1875)
  • Chetwynd Calverley (1876), published in three volumes
  • The Leaguer of Lathom (1876)
  • The Fall of Somerset (1877)
  • Beatrice Tyldesley (1878)
  • Beau Nash; or, Bath in the Eighteenth Century (1879)
  • Stanley Brereton (1881)

References

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Bibliography