Herman Charles Merivale

Herman Charles Merivale developed an English literary career across drama, poetry, fiction, memoir, the law, and journalism. Florien, produced and published in the 1880s, belongs to a varied dramatic catalogue that also includes All for Her, Forget-Me-Not, The White Pilgrim, The Butler, and A Son of the Soil. Merivale often collaborated with other theatre writers, most notably Florence Crauford Grove on Forget-Me-Not, and he also wrote under the pseudonym Felix Dale. Educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford, he trained for the bar before concentrating on writing for the stage. His prose works include the novel Faucit of Balliol, the autobiographical Bar, Stage and Platform, and a study of William Makepeace Thackeray written with Frank T. Marzials. Another memoir, My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum, records his treatment as a patient and became an important part of his public reputation. Florien therefore sits within a body of work spanning performance, biography, fiction, and personal testimony.