According to Wikipedia: 'George Meredith, OM (February 12, 1828 May 18, 1909) was an English novelist and poet during the Victorian era. Meredith was born in Portsmouth, England, a son and grandson of naval outfitters.[1] His mother died when he was five. .He read law and was articled as a solicitor, but abandoned that profession for journalism and poetry shortly after marrying Mary Ellen Nicolls, a widowed daughter of Thomas Love Peacock, in 1849. He was twenty-one years old; she was thirty.