Arlington

The Novel

The story opens with the mysterious death of the hero's father, Lord Arlington, who had gone out to shoot in the morning, and is missed at the hour when it became his duty to entertain a party at dinner. After due search he is found lying in the middle of a plantation, shot through the heart. A dismissed steward, named Clarkson, is generally suspected of having murdered him, and steps are taken to bring him to trial...


Contemporary Reviews

New Monthly Magazine, June 1832 — Arlington will perhaps be read with more profit than pleasure; still it is a book that few will lay down unfinished who have once begun it. As a sensible and true picture of the high and middling class of English people, Arlington is amusing and excellent. 


The Edinburgh Review, 1832 — In point of strongly drawn and well contrasted characters, as well as greater power and finish of execution generally, we should be inclined to give Arlington the preference over Granby and Herbert Lacy. The work must be allowed to present a highly recommendatory view of the author's mind and sentiments. All his novels, indeed, are characterized by excellent sense, amiable feelings, and sound morality.


The Author

Thomas Henry Lister (1800 - 5 June 1842) was the son of Thomas Lister of Armitage Park and his first wife Harriet Anne Seale. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. His several novels include Granby (1826), Herbert Lacy (1828), and Arlington (1832). He was also the author of a Life of Clarendon. In 1830, he published a story entitled A Dialogue for the Year 2130, which might be described as an early example of science fiction or 'futuristic' writing, of the kind later popularized by Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. Published in The Keepsake, a literary annual, the story looks forward to a world in which gentlemen go hunting on machines and shoot horses, while a certain Lady D. owns a troublesome automatic letter-writer and is served by a "steam-porter" which opens doors. In 1836 he was appointed as the first Registrar General for England and Wales, to head the new General Register Office. He was responsible for setting up the system of civil registration of births, deaths and marriages, and organization of the 1841 UK Census. He died of tuberculosis in 1842, whilst resident at Adelphi Terrace, London.