author
William Augustus Miles
d. 1817
An English political writer and government informant, he moved through the turbulent world around the French Revolution and turned those experiences into sharp, firsthand commentary. His surviving letters and political writings offer a vivid glimpse of late 18th-century Britain and Europe.
1 Audiobook
The Letters of Gracchus on the East India Question
by William Augustus Miles
About the author
Born around 1753, William Augustus Miles was an English political writer whose career mixed journalism, pamphleteering, and government work. Sources describe him as a British agent as well as a commentator on public affairs, especially during the years surrounding the French Revolution.
Miles is best remembered for political writings and correspondence linked to that era. His letters were later collected and published as The Correspondence of William Augustus Miles on the French Revolution, 1789–1817, which helped preserve his perspective on the major political upheavals of his time.
He died in 1817. Some biographical details about his life appear in reference works and archival records, but the clearest consistent picture is of a writer closely involved with the political tensions of late Georgian Britain.