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THOMAS MAYNE REID (1818-1883)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 52 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THOMAS MAYNE REID (1818-1883)  , better known as MAYNE REID,
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British novelist, the son of a Presbyterian minister, was born at Ballyroney, Co . Down, Ireland, on the 4th of
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April 1818 . His own early
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life was as adventurous as any boy reader of his novels could
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desire . He was educated for the church, but did not take orders, and when twenty years old went to
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America in search of excitement and fortune . He made trading excursions on the Red
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river, studying the ways of the red man and the white
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pioneer . He made acquaintance with the
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Missouri in the same manner, and roved through all the states of the Union . In
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Philadelphia, where he was engaged in journalism from 1843 to 1846, he made the acquaintance of Edgar Allan Poe . When the war with Mexico broke out in 1846 he obtained a captain's commission, was
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present at the siege and capture of Vera Cruz, and led a forlorn hope at Chapultepec, where he sustained such severe injuries that his life was despaired of . In one of his novels he says that he believed theoretically in the military value of untrained troops, and that he had found his theories confirmed in actual warfare . An enthusiastic republican, he offered his services to the Hungarian insurgents in 1849, raised a
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body of
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volunteers, and sailed for
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Europe, but arrived too
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late . He then settled in England, and began his career of a novelist with the publication, in 185o, of the
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Rifle Rangers . This was followed next
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year by the Scalp Hunters .

He never surpassed his first productions, except perhaps in The White

Chief (18J9) and The Quadroon (1856): but he continued to produce tales of self-reliant enter-prise and exciting adventure with
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great fertility . Simplicity ofplot and easy variety of exciting incident are among the merits that contribute to his popularity with boys . His reflections are not profound, but are frequently more sensible than might be presumed at first from his aggressive manner of expressing them . He died in
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London on the 22nd of
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October 1883 . See Memoir (189o) by his widow, Elizabeth Mayne Reid .

End of Article: THOMAS MAYNE REID (1818-1883)
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