William Harrison Ainsworth (February 4, 1805 -- January 3, 1882) was among the most popular novelists of the Victorian era. A brilliant student, he first intended to join his father's prominent law firm. However, his ambition soon turned to publishing and literature, in particular the genre of historical fiction. Strikingly handsome and rather dandified, Ainsworth counted Dickens, Lamb, Scott, Thackeray and Wordsworth among his many friends.