{{Short description|English writer and journalist}} {{other people}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2015}} {{infobox person | image = Robert Harborough Sherard.jpg | birth_name = Robert Harborough Sherard Kennedy | birth_date = {{birth date|1861|12|03|df=yes}} | birth_place = Putney, London | death_date = {{death date and age|1943|01|30|1861|12|03|df=yes}} | death_place = Ealing, London | education = Elizabeth College, Guernsey | alma_mater = University of Oxford<br>University of Bonn | parents = Bennet Sherard Calcraft Kennedy<br>Jane Stanley Wordsworth | spouse = {{plainlist| * {{marriage|Marthe Lipska|1887|1906|reason=div}} * {{marriage|Irene Osgood|1908|1915|reason=div}} * {{marriage|Alice Muriel Fiddian|1928||reason=}} }} | relatives = Robert Sherard, 6th Earl of Harborough (grandfather)<br>William Wordsworth (great-grandfather) }}
'''Robert Harborough Sherard''' (3 December 1861 – 30 January 1943) was an English writer and journalist. He was a friend, and the first biographer, of Oscar Wilde, as well as being Wilde's most prolific biographer in the first half of the twentieth century.
==Early life== thumb|right|Robert H. Sherard Born on 3 December 1861 at Putney, London, England, Sherard began life as Robert Harborough Sherard Kennedy and was the son of the Reverend Bennet Sherard Calcraft Kennedy (an illegitimate son of Robert Sherard, 6th Earl of Harborough by the actress Emma Love). His mother was Jane Stanley Wordsworth, a granddaughter of the poet William Wordsworth.<ref name="Sherard1898">{{cite news |last1=Sherard |first1=Robert |title=Mr. Sherard's Descent from Wordsworth. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1898/04/16/archives/mr-sherards-descent-from-wordsworth.html |access-date=13 June 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=16 April 1898}}</ref> He dropped the surname Kennedy upon moving to Paris in late 1882 after a quarrel with his father, who cut him off from the expected family inheritance.
Sherard was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey,<ref>{{cite magazine|title=SHERARD, Robert Harborough|magazine=Who's Who|year=1907|volume= 59|page=1598|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yEcuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1598}}</ref> the University of Oxford and the University of Bonn.<ref>Keating, P.J., ''Into unknown England, 1866–1913: selections from the social explorers'', page 174</ref><ref name="Thompson1937">{{cite news |last1=Thompson |first1=Ralph |title=BOOKS OF THE TIMES; To Expose a Fraud |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1937/01/20/archives/books-of-the-times-to-expose-a-fraud.html |access-date=13 June 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=20 January 1937}}</ref>
==Career== Sherard wrote about the effects of immigration into England and his articles have been described as xenophobic and anti-semitic.<ref>Holmes, Colin ''Anti-Semitism in British Society, 1876-1939'' (1979) pp37-38</ref> Whilst he was an "outspoken anti-semitic observer of 'social problems' "<ref>Strauss, Herbert Arthur (editor) ''Hostages of Modernization: Germany - Great Britain - France: Studies on Modern Antisemitism, 1870-1933/39'' (1993) p357</ref> he denied he was motivated by hatred of Jews.
==Personal life== Sherard married three times. In 1887 he married Marthe Lipska, a daughter of the Baron de Stern. They divorced in 1906 and he married the American novelist, poet and dramatist, Irene Osgood in 1908.<ref name="1911Books">{{cite news |title=WROTE HIS WIFE'S BOOKS.; Such Is Claim of Robert Sherard Against "Irene Osgood." |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1911/04/09/archives/wrote-his-wifes-books-such-is-claim-of-robert-sherard-against-irene.html |access-date=13 June 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=9 April 1911}}</ref> They divorced in 1915,<ref name="1915Divorce">{{cite news |title=DIVORCE FOR IRENE OSGOOD.; American Writer Gets a Decree Against Robert H. Sherard. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1915/01/20/archives/divorce-for-irene-osgood-american-writer-gets-a-decree-against.html |access-date=13 June 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=20 January 1915}}</ref> and he married Alice Muriel Fiddian in 1928.<ref name="oxfordreference">{{cite web |title=Robert H. Sherard |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100501359;jsessionid=FE89D89D3886E4E6E246AD736979912A |website=www.oxfordreference.com |publisher=Oxford Reference |access-date=13 June 2023 |language=en }}</ref>
He died in Ealing in west London in January 1943,<ref>England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007</ref> aged 81.<ref name="RHSObit1943">{{cite news |title=ROBERT H. SHERARD |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1943/02/02/archives/robert-it-herard.html |access-date=13 June 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=2 February 1943}}</ref>
==Works==
===Biographies=== * ''Émile Zola: A Biographical and Critical Study.'' London: Chatto & Windus, 1893. * ''Alphonse Daudet: a biographical and critical study'' (1894) * ''My First Voyage, My First Lie'' (1901) in collaboration with Alphonse Daudet<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review: ''My First Voyage''. By Alphonse Daudet and Robert H. Sherard|journal=The Literary World|volume= 63|year=1901|page=175|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sD4ZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA175}}</ref> * ''Oscar Wilde: The Story of an Unhappy Friendship.'' The Hermes Press, 1902. * ''The Life of Oscar Wilde.'' London: T. Werner Laurie, 1906. * ''The Real Oscar Wilde: To be used as a Supplement to, and in Illustration of "The Life of Oscar Wilde".'' London: T. Werner Laurie, 1917. * ''The Life and Evil Fate of Guy de Maupassant'' (1926) * ''Oscar Wilde Twice Defended from André Gide's Wicked Lies and Frank Harris's Cruel Libels; to Which Is Added a Reply to George Bernard Shaw, a Refutation of Dr G.J. Renier's Statements, a Letter to the Author from Lord Alfred Douglas and an Interview with Bernard Shaw by Hugh Kingsmill.'' Chicago: Argus Book Shop, 1934. * ''Bernard Shaw, Frank Harris and Oscar Wilde.'' New York: Greystone Press, 1937.
===Novels=== * ''A Bartered Honour'' (1883) * ''The American Marquis'' (1888) * ''Rogues'' (1889) * ''Agatha's Quest'' (1890) * ''By Right Not Law'' (1891) * ''The Typewritten Letter'' (1891) * ''Jacob Niemand'' (1895) * ''The Iron Cross'' (1897) * ''Wolves: An Old Story Retold'' (1904) * ''After the Fault'' (1906)
===Poetry=== ''Whispers'' (1884)
===Non-fiction=== [[File:Piffard (1896) White Slaves of England Cradley Heath.png|thumb|right|Picture of Chain makers in Cradley Heath by Harold H. Piffard to illustrate original article which appeared in Pearson's Magazine]] * ''The White Slaves of England'' (1897) (originally serialised in ''Pearson's Magazine'') * ''The Cry of the Poor'' (1901) * ''The Closed Door'' (1902) * ''The Child Slaves of Britain'' (1905) * ''Modern Paris: Some Sidelights on Its Inner Life.'' London: T. Werner Laurie, 1912.
===Autobiography=== * ''Oscar Wilde: The Story of an Unhappy Friendship.'' London: privately printed, 1902. London: Greening & Co., 1905. * ''Twenty Years in Paris: Being Some Recollections of a Literary Life.'' London: Hutchinson & Co., 1905.
===Papers=== * University of Reading (Reading, UK) (Papers purchased 1 February 1964 from Rupert Hart-Davis).
===References=== *{{cite journal | last1 = O'Brien | first1 = Kevin H.F. | year = 1987 | title = Irene Osgood, John Richmond Limited and the Wilde Circle | journal = Publishing History | volume = 22 | pages = 73–93 }} * {{cite journal | last1 = O'Brien | first1 = Kevin H.F. | year = 1985 | title = Robert Sherard: Friend of Oscar Wilde | journal = English Literature in Transition, 1880–1920 | volume = 28 | pages = 3–29 }} *O'Brien, Kevin H.F. "Sherard, Robert Harborough." ''The 1890s, An Encyclopedia of British Literature, Art & Culture'' Ed. G.A. Cevasco. New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1993.
==In popular culture== * Sherard is a character in the Oscar Wilde Mystery series written by Gyles Brandreth.
==Footnotes== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Robert Harborough Sherard}} * {{Librivox author |id=10342}}
{{Oscar Wilde}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sherard, Robert}} Category:1861 births Category:1943 deaths Category:19th-century English novelists Category:20th-century English novelists Category:19th-century English biographers Category:20th-century English memoirists Category:19th-century English male writers Category:20th-century English male writers Category:19th-century English poets Category:People from Putney Robert Category:English male poets Category:English non-fiction writers Category:People educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey Category:English male novelists Category:English male non-fiction writers Category:Writers from the London Borough of Wandsworth