Arthur St. John Adcock
Arthur St. John Adcock was an English novelist and literary critic born in London on January 17, 1864. Initially trained in law, he married Marion Louise Taylor in 1887 but left his legal career in 1893 to pursue writing full-time. Lacking family support or private income, Adcock faced financial challenges and often supplemented his writing with various jobs, including editing for the literary magazine *The Bookman*. He was an advocate for the Realist movement, focusing on urban life and its complexities, particularly the experiences of London's working-class neighborhoods. Known for his authentic portrayals and use of the Cockney dialect, Adcock's work often highlighted the struggles and conditions faced by ordinary people. As a long-time editor, he played a significant role in promoting contemporary writers, notably influencing the recognition of poet W. H. Davies. Adcock's commitment to his craft and his dedication to meeting deadlines, even in poor health, underscored his workmanlike approach to literature. His legacy includes compassionate and relatable representations of working-class life, making his contributions valuable for both his contemporaries and future generations.
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Subject Terms
Arthur St. John Adcock
Author
- Born: January 17, 1864
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: June 9, 1930
- Place of death: Richmond, England
Biography
Arthur St. John Adcock, an English novelist and literary critic, was born in London on January 17, 1864, the second son of William and Eliza Adcock. He was privately educated in the law, and married Marion Louise Taylor in 1887. However, his legal career did not last long; he resigned his post as a law clerk in 1893 to take up a full-time writing career. Without the sort of family support or private income that many educated, middle-class Englishmen of the time possessed, Adcock struggled to make a living as a creative writer and was frequently compelled to turn to more prosaic work in order to support himself. This work included writing reviews, light verse, serials and travel pieces, and editing a technical journal in addition to his employment with the literary magazine The Bookman.
Adcock subscribed to the ethics and aesthetics of the nineteenth century Realist movement in fiction. Born and raised in the city, Adcock’s primary subject for both his fiction and nonfiction was urban life: its joys and struggles and its influence upon character. He was well-known and sometimes criticized for his accurate depictions of London’s working- class neighborhoods and of his depictions of the sometimes sordid conditions of human life that existed there. Adcock was also well known for his use of dialect in fiction, particularly the Cockney dialect.
As a long-time editor of The Bookman, a prominent literary magazine of the era, Adcock kept his finger on the pulse of London literary life. His reviews and critiques of various writers were influential in bringing some of his contemporaries to prominence, notably the poet W. H. Davies. Adcock’s attitude toward his art was workmanlike: anecdotes abound of his prolific output, his dogged habits of manuscript submission, and his insistence on meeting deadlines in spite of frail health or accident. His own struggles to make a living may have sparked his interest in depicting the lives of working people, and his most important contribution may have been creating compassionate and accessible representations of the lives of working-class Londoners for his own reading public and for current and future generations.