George Meredith (1828-1909) abandoned the legal profession for journalism and poetry after marrying Mary Ellen Nicolls, a widowed daughter of Thomas Love Peacock. After his wife ran off with the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis, Mereditch"s collection of sonnets entitled "Modern Love" (1862) and his first major novel, "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel," came of this experience.