Gerald Massey's life and works exemplify the Victorian faith that industry and idealism are sure to win the favors of the Muse. He was one of a number of late Victorians who struggled through the most dispiriting poverty toward a life of letters and gained popularity and critical approbation both in England and in America. Self-taught and naive, Massey and nevertheless capable of presenting to his readers an idealized England possessed of a life at once heroic, aesthetic, and simple.

Massey was born at Gamble's Wharf near Tring in Hertfordshire, England, on 29 May 1828. His father was William Massey, a canal boatman who had to support a large family on ten shillings a week; Gerald was able to go to a national school for only a few terms before he had to start earning a living, at the age of eight, in a silk factory at Tring. Then he...