George Etell Sargent, an Englishman, was an Evangelical tract writer for the Religious Tract Society (RTS). He was the son-in-law of Esther Copley (1786-1851), a prolific Evangelical author of children's stories, works of domestic economy and religious history and biography. Sargent began by writing sermons which he delivered as a lay preacher in Oxfordshire villages, published as Tracts by the RTS from 1841.
When The Leisure Hour (1852) and Sunday at Home (1854) were established Sargent was invited to write for them. He began in 1855 with one of his most memorable stories, The Story of a Pocket Bible, in Sunday at Home and made annual contributions. This was followed by Roland Leigh, the Story of a City Arab (1857) serialised in The Leisure Hour. J. S. Bratton (65) argues that Sargent was influenced by the social problem novels of the 1840s and Charles Kingsley in his understanding of the working man. The Story of a Pocket Bible 'with its detailed account of modern poverty set in a narrative framework which offers a providentially happy solution ... is nearer to the fantasy version of real life found in the domestic melodrama.' (65). It also encompassed a series of increasingly sensational adult strays from the fold. The work was a great success, helping to establish a readership for Sundays at Home.
Sargent became RTS tract editor, in charge of the Tract Magazine, in 1869 until he retired in 1880 and spent the remainder of his life rewriting his stories. The Oxford Companion to Australian Children's Literature (1993): 375 asserts Sargent never visited Australia.
Source: J. S. Bratton The Impact of Victorian Children's Fiction (1981).
