Philip Hamerton was born at Laneside, a hamlet near Shaw and Crompton, Lancashire, England. His mother died giving birth to him, and his father died ten years later. When he was about five, he was sent to live with his two aunts at an estate called the Hollins on the edge of Burnley, where he attended Burnley Grammar School.Hamerton's first literary attempt, a volume of poems, was unsuccessful, leading him to devote himself for a time entirely to...