Author: Robert Pemberton
Author: Robert Pemberton (1788–1879)
Biography: Robert Pemberton was born around 1788 in London. His parentage and youth are obscure, but he may be have been born on 5 May 1788 in the London Foundling Hospital. In the 1850s, he began writing works on education and Owenite socialism. His only fiction, The Happy Colony (1854), imagines a utopian community in New Zealand (though there is no evidence he visited there himself). In the 1851 census, he is living with his wife and three children in St. Leonard's, Kent, occupation "proprietor of houses." In the following census, he is living with his wife and one daughter in London, occupation "classical bookseller." He died on 18 May 1879 in St. Albans.
References: British Census (1851, 1861); Northampton Mercury (24 May 1879); Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature; Probate
Fiction Titles:
- The Happy Colony. 1 vol. London: Saunders and Otley, 1854.