Meredith, George: Beauchamp's Career. V1. 1 Feb 2010
 

George Meredith, OM (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet during the Victorian era. His first home was in Portsmouth, where his father was a tailor. When George was only five years old, his mother died. His childhood after her death was not happy. In 1842, when George Meredith was 15, he attended the Moravian school at Neuwied on the Rhine. Although he was there for less than two years, Meredith was to refer to this period as the only real education he had. The school stimulated his intellect and taught him to respect rationality, self-respect, sincerity and courage. The time spent there also left him with a love of German music, poetry and the German countryside. It marked the end of his formal schooling.

Excerpt
Beauchamp's Career (1875) is a novel which portrays life and love in upper-class Radical circles and satirises the Conservative establishment. Meredith himself was inclined to think it his best novel, and the character Renée de Croisnel was his favourite of his creations. The Penguin Companion to Literature calls it "One of the finest political novels in English."
Wikipedia