Scottish writer
Charles Macfarlane (1799–1858) was a Scottish writer, known as much for his historical and travel works as he was for his novels.
Life.
He was the son of Robert Macfarlane. From January 1816 to May 1827 he lived in Italy. In 1827, he went to Turkey and lived for sixteen months in Constantinople and the Turkish provinces.
Macfarlane settled in London, England in 1829, supporting himself by writing. He was for many years on the staff of the publisher, Charles Knight.
Accompanied by his eldest son, then 16, Macfarlane returned to Turkey in 1847. On his way home, in the summer of 1848, they visited Messina and made a tour through the kingdom of Naples, the Abruzzi, the marches of Ancona, and Rome. His wife Charlotte died in 1854 at their home in Canterbury, Kent. In July 1857 he was nominated a poor brother of the London Charterhouse, where he died on 9 December 1858.
Works.
Macfarlane's most substantial work was the "Civil and Military History of England", part of Knight's "Pictorial History of England", edited by George Lillie Craik, 8 vols. 1838-44. An abridgment, with a continuation bringing it up to date, was published under the title of "The Cabinet History of England", 26 vols. London, 1845-7. Another edition, with the title changed to "The Comprehensive History of England", appeared under the editorship of Thomas Napier Thomson, 4 vols. London, 1856–61, and again in 1876–8; and a third, with a continuation to 1884, by Thomas Archer, was issued as "The Popular History of England", 3 vols. London, 1886. For Knight also, Macfarlane compiled anonymously two volumes called "The Book of Table Talk", 1836 (another edition 1847), for which James Robinson Planché wrote a brief history of stage costume.
Macfarlane wrote historical novels and biographies of Thomas Gresham (1847), the Duke of Marlborough (1852), the Duke of Wellington (1853, 1877, 1886), and Napoleon I (1852, 1879, 1880, 1886). His works included:
He also translated Adolphe Desbarrolles' "Two French Artists in Spain", 1851.
Family.
Macfarlane married Charlotte Emily Ormsden in about 1830. They had six children: Charles, Arabella, Blanche, Malcolm (died young), Victor and Marion Macfarlane. Daughters Arabella and Marion became nuns, while sons Charles and Victor had military careers.
Notes.
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 incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 