Literature and Love

In London, Ainsowrth met a man who was to have a profound influence on both the personal and professional aspects of Ainsworth’s life. John Ebers was a publisher, and proprietor of the Opera House in Haymarket, where the two met and struck up a friendship. Ebers first invited the literary tyro to help write and edit a proposed literary miscellany, which, despite initial enthusiasm, ultimately failed to appear. There were a few trifles of verse and prose, as well as a curious (and now extremely rare) pamphlet entitled Considerations on the best means of affording Immediate Relief to the Operating Classes in the Manufacturing Districts.

More of that later, but the most important factor in the friendship with Ebers, which changed Ainsworth’s life, appeared in the shape of the younger of the publisher’s two pretty daughters (see illustration), with whom the young man immediately fell in love. Fortunately, Fanny Ebers concurred with these sentiments, and the two were married in 1826. They were to have three daughters, Fanny (b.1827), Emily (b.1829) and Blanche (b.1830). However, Ainsworth’s literary social life continued unabated, and in 1835, Fanny returned to live with her father. She died three years later, at the tragically early age of 30.