John Forster

Born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1812, John Forster became a prominent English writer, journalist, and biographer. He built his reputation early with historical work such as Lives of the Statesmen of the Commonwealth, then became an influential presence in literary London through criticism and editorial work for publications including The Examiner, the Foreign Quarterly Review, and the Daily News.

Forster is most closely linked with Charles Dickens. The two were close friends, and Forster served not just as a companion but as a trusted adviser, reader, and literary ally. After Dickens’s death, Forster published The Life of Charles Dickens in 1872–74, a landmark biography that drew on personal knowledge and helped define Dickens’s public image for generations.

He also wrote biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Walter Savage Landor, and Jonathan Swift, and is often seen as one of the important professional biographers of 19th-century England. He died in London in 1876, leaving behind a body of work that still matters to readers interested in Victorian literature and literary friendship.