Mark Rutherford

Mark Rutherford's Deliverance (Dodo Press)

William Hale White (1831-1913) known by his pseudonym Mark Rutherford was a British writer and civil servant. White was born in Bedford and educated at Bedford Modern School. He had already served an apprenticeship to journalism before he made his name as a novelist with the three books supposedly edited by Reuben Shapcott, The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford (1881), Mark Rutherford's Deliverance (1885), and The Revolution in Tanner's Lane (1887). Later books are Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers (1890), Catharine Furze (1893), Clara Hopgood (1896), Pages from a Journal, with Other Papers (1900), and The Early Life of Mark Rutherford. Though for a long time little appreciated by the public, his novels, particularly the earlier ones, share a power and style which must always give his works a place of their own in the literary history of their time. George Orwell described Mark Rutherford's Deliverance as 'one of the best novels written in English'.