Charles Garvice

Born in London on 24 August 1850, Charles Garvice became one of the most commercially successful British novelists of his era. He began his career in journalism and went on to write more than 150 novels, building a vast audience in Britain, the United States, and abroad through translations.

Garvice was best known for fast-moving, emotional romance fiction, and he also wrote under the female pen name Caroline Hart. His popularity was remarkable: by the 1910s, his books were selling in enormous numbers, making him a familiar name to readers even if literary critics were less enthusiastic.

He died on 1 March 1920 in Richmond, Surrey. Today, he is remembered as a striking example of the gap that can open between critical opinion and public taste: a writer dismissed by some reviewers, but cherished by a very large readership.