Talbot Baines Reed, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetTalbot Baines Reed
English author
Date of Birth: 03-Apr-1852
Place of Birth: London Borough of Hackney, England, United Kingdom
Date of Death: 28-Nov-1893
Profession: writer
Zodiac Sign: Aries 
About Talbot Baines Reed
- Talbot Baines Reed (3 April 1852 – 28 November 1893) was an English writer of boys' fiction who established a genre of school stories that endured into the mid-20th century.
- Among his best-known work is The Fifth Form at St.
- Dominic's.
- He was a regular and prolific contributor to The Boy's Own Paper (B.O.P.), in which most of his fiction first appeared.
- Through his family's business, Reed became a prominent typefounder, and wrote a standard work on the subject: History of the Old English Letter Foundries. Reed's father, Charles Reed, was a successful London printer who later became a Member of Parliament (MP).
- Talbot attended the City of London School before leaving at 17 to join the family business in Fann Street.
- His literary career began in 1879, when the B.O.P.
- was launched.
- The family were staunchly Christian, pillars of the Congregational Church, and were heavily involved in charitable works.
- However, Reed did not use his writing as a vehicle for moralising, and was dismissive of those early school story writers who did, such as Dean Farrar.
- Reed's affinity with boys, his instinctive understanding of their standpoint in life and his gift for creating believable characters, ensured that his popularity survived through several generations.
- He was widely imitated by other writers in the school story genre. In 1881, following the death of his father, Reed became head of the company.
- By then he had begun his monumental history which was published in 1887.
- Along with his B.O.P.
- contributions Reed wrote regular articles and book reviews for his cousin Edward Baines's newspaper, the Leeds Mercury.
- He was a co-founder and first honorary secretary of the Bibliographical Society, and a trustee for his family's charities.
- All this activity may have undermined his health; after struggling with illness for most of 1893, Reed died in November that year, at the age of 41.
- Tributes honoured him both for his contribution to children's fiction and for his work as the definitive historian of English typefounding.
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