Charles Whibley

Charles Whibley (1859–1930) was born in Kensington, London, and worked as a journalist, literary critic, and editor for much of his career, closely associated with the poet and editor W. E. Henley and the combative, anti-establishment literary circle around him. His criticism ranged widely across French and English literature, but he is remembered today chiefly for A Book of Scoundrels (1897), a collection of vivid, admiring essays on historical highwaymen, pirates, and swindlers written with a stylist's relish for their audacity. A regular contributor to Blackwood's Magazine for decades, he held firmly conservative political views that colored much of his later journalism. He died in London at seventy-one.