James Payn - Editor and Novelist

Editor and Novelist

Payn then settled down in the Lake district to a literary career and contributed regularly to Household Words and Chambers's Journal. In 1858 he removed to Edinburgh to act as joint-editor of the latter periodical. He became sole editor in 1860, and conducted the magazine with much success for fifteen years. He removed to London in 1861. In the pages of the Journal he published in 1864 his most popular story, Lost Sir Massingberd. From this time he was engaged in writing novels, including Richard Arbour or the Family Scapegrace (1861), Married Beneath Him (1865), Carlyon's Year (1868), A County Family (1869), By Proxy (1878), A Confidential Agent (1880), A Grape from a Thorn, The Talk of the Town (1885), and The Heir of the Ages (1886).

In 1883 he succeeded Leslie Stephen as editor of the Cornhill Magazine and continued in the post until the breakdown of his health in 1896. He was also literary adviser to Messrs Smith, Elder & Company. His publications included a Handbook to the English Lakes (1859), and various volumes of occasional essays, Maxims by a Man of the World (1869), Some Private Views (1881), Some Literary Recollections (1884). A posthumous work, The Backwater of Life (1899), revealed much of his own personality in a mood of kindly, sensible reflection upon familiar topics. He died in London, on 25 March 1898.

A biographical introduction to The Backwater of Life was furnished by Sir Leslie Stephen.