Small image of a man handing a book to a women across a counter.

At the Circulating Library

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

A Database of Victorian Fiction, 1837–1901

Author: William John Bellew Archer

Author: William John Bellew Archer (1805–1872)

Alternate Name(s): Minimus Mote, Gentleman (pseudonym)

Biography: William John Bellew Archer was born in 1805 and earned a B.A. from Trinity College, Dublin. He was instituted to the perpetual curacy of Churchill, Somerset, in 1840, and he served as the British chaplain at Worms, Germany, from 1850-59. Archer published his only novel Black William's Grave (1849) under the pseudonym "Minimus Mote, Gentleman" with the assistance of his friend John Allen Giles. His novel was an imitation of Ann Radcliffe's gothic novels but without her ability—the New Monthly Magazine review opines, "His want of invention is so manifest, that the whole of his story might be written in a page. His style is diffuse in the extreme; his descriptions wire-drawn and faulty; and his language turgid and conceited." His youngest daughter Tryphena M. Browne also wrote fiction. He died in 1872.

Author Tags:

References: David Bromwich, ed., The Diary and Memoirs of John Allen Giles (Somerset Record Society, 2000); New Monthly Magazine (December 1849)

Fiction Titles:

  1. Black William's Grave: A Romance of North Wales.  3 vol.  London: T. C. Newby, 1849.