Author: Heraud, John Abraham
Biography:
HERAUD, John Abraham (1799-1887: ODNB)
Heraud was, as ODNB observes, “a ubiquitous presence in the world of Victorian letters” as a reviewer, essayist, and editor of influential periodicals; but he had literary ambitions himself. The son of a law stationer, James Abraham Heraud, and his wife Jane Hicks, he was born in Holborn, London, on 5 Jul. and baptised on 4 Aug. 1799. Privately educated and destined for business, he instead devoted himself to writing for a living and turned the German that he had been taught to account by attempting to popularize German philosophy. He laboured for decades on an original work in philosophy that was never finished. Reviewers noted the “irregular flights” of his early poems but were generally encouraging. On 15 May 1823 he married Ann Elizabeth Baddams at St. Mary’s, Lambeth; the couple had three children who survived them both. Heraud became a frequent (anonymous) contributor to the periodical press; in his time he reviewed Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Landor, and Southey (qq.v.). He also served as assistant editor of Fraser’s Magazine(1830-3), founder of the weekly Sunbeam (1838), and editor of the Monthly Magazine (1839-42). He became the theatre critic of the Athenaeum in the 1840s and then of the Illustrated London News until his retirement in 1873. His efforts as a playwright failed although three of his plays were performed—not published--between 1854 and 1857. Applications and appeals for a government annuity or pension, supported by some of his more eminent literary friends, were also unsuccessful. Following the death of his wife in 1867, however, in July 1873 he was admitted as a “Brother” or pensioner to the Charterhouse, London. He died there on 20 Apr. 1887 and his daughter Edith (1834-99), who had nursed him in his final illness, published a memoir of him in 1898. She had been an actress, “elocutionist,” and writer for the magazines herself, but suffered from ill health in her later years. Both she and her father struggled to make ends meet and their many applications to the RLF provide painful evidence of financial hardships from the time of his first application in May 1847 to her last one in May 1899, shortly before her death. The RLF responded generously, awarding each of them, over the years, just under £400. (ODNB 1 May 2022; findmypast.com 1 May 2022; GM 128 [1820] 530-1; RLF #1167, 2080)
Other Names:
- J. A. Heraud
- John A. Heraud