[Charles Francis]. English author, born near Stoke-on-Trent, on the 28th of March 1848. Educated at Marlborough and Trinity College, Cambridge, he was for some years in the coins department of the British Museum. His first published work was Outlines of Primitive Belief among the Indo-European Races (1882), followed by several works on Norse history and mythology, The Mythology of the Eddas (1882); The Vikings in Western Christendom (1890) and Norway and the Norwegians (1892). In 1910 he published a philosophical work The Pursuit of Reason; but from 1889 onwards he devoted most of his time to fiction and verse. Amongst his novels may be named A Marriage de Convenance (1889); Herbert Vaulennert (1895) and Bloomsbury (1905); and amongst his poems, Rigel, a Mystery (1903) and Religious Hours (1916). He died in London on the 25th of October 1917.
