George Croly was noted for his versatility and productivity even in his own time, the period from the second generation of English Romanticism through high Victorianism, when prolific authorship was the rule. He invented short tales as easily as he turned out plays, novels, poetry of many kinds, and editions of the works of other poets; journalistic essays on a wide range of topics; and theological works and sermons. His tales formed a substantial contribution to the fiction in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, which, in turn, provided one of the earliest and steadiest models for British nineteenth-century short-fiction writing. Croly also promulgated the Blackwood's political cause: through nearly three hundred articles during more than three decades he was among the magazine's most vehement and unwavering spokesmen for "Ultra-Toryism" or Anglican "Ultra-Protestantism"--beliefs that pervade all of his work, including his tales.

Croly was born in Dublin on 17 August 1780; his...