James Rice, an English novelist, was born in Northampton September 26, 1843, and died in Redhill, Surrey, April 26, 1882. He was educated at Queen's College, Cambridge. He did not come up for his degree, but was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1871. From 1868 to 1872 he was editor and proprietor of Once a Week, and for eight years was London correspondent for the Toronto Globe. In 1872 there appeared in Once a Week the novel entitled "Ready Money Mortiboy." It was the first of a long series of novels written in collaboration with Walter Besant, a very successful literary partnership which lasted until a year before Rice's death, when illness put a stop to his writing.

Among the novels written in collaboration with Besant were: "Ready Money Mortiboy" (1872), "My Little Girl" (1873), "This Son of Vulcan" (1876), "The Case of Mr. Lucraft" (1876), "With Harp and Crown" (1876), "The Golden Butterfly" (1876), "The Monks of Thelema" (1878), "By Celia's Arbour" (1878), " 'Twas in Trafalgar Bay" (1879), "The Seamy Side" (1880), "The Chaplain of the Fleet" (1881), "Sir Richard Whittington" (1881), "The Ten Years' Tenant" (1881), "Shepherds All and Maidens Fair" (1882), and "When the Ship Comes Home" (1882).

For the novels reprinted by Beadle, see under Walter Besant.

REFERENCES: London Times, April 27, 1882, 10; Athenaeum, I, 1882, 540; Law Journal, XVII, 1882, 249; Guardian, XXXVII, 1882, 617; Law Times, LXXIII, 1882, 34.