Gustave Louis Maurice Strauss

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Gustave Louis Maurice Strauss (c. 1807 – 2 September 1887) was a Canadian-born British writer and a well-known figure in Victorian London. Known as the “Old Bohemian,” he helped found the Savage Club and worked in many different literary and professional roles.

Early life and education
- Born in Trois-Rivières, Lower Canada, around 1807. He claimed Italian, French, German, and Sarmatian ancestry, though he was a British subject.
- In the 1810s his family moved to Europe, living near Hanover. After his father’s death, he studied at the Klosterschule in Magdeburg.
- He studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin, earning a Doctor of Philosophy, and at the Montpellier School of Medicine in France.

Political activity and military service
- Strauss visited England in 1832 on an industrial tour, then returned to Germany and took part in liberal demonstrations, including the 1833 Frankfurt uprising. After the revolt was suppressed, he fled to France.
- The Prussian government confiscated his property and only returned it in 1840.
- In 1833 he joined the French Army in Algiers as an assistant surgeon with the French Foreign Legion. He left the Legion in 1834, later contributing to Republican journals in France.
- In 1839 he was expelled from France for alleged involvement in a revolutionary plot.

Career in Britain
- He settled in London, initially working as secretary and assistant to a homeopathic physician, but he soon wore many hats: author, linguist, chemist, politician, cook, journalist, tutor, dramatist, and surgeon.
- Strauss published a wide range of works, including fiction, theatre pieces, language textbooks, historical and biographical studies, culinary books, and translations. He became known in literary circles as the "Old Bohemian" and as the “Poisoner’s Friend.” He also helped found the Savage Club in 1857.
- In 1865 he published the novel The Old Ledger, which drew sharp criticism from The Athenaeum. Strauss sued for libel, and the case was settled by mutual consent. After renewed criticism, another suit followed, but the jury ruled in favor of the defendants.
- His autobiography, The Reminiscences of an Old Bohemian, appeared in two volumes in 1882. It was praised by Arthur Conan Doyle as well written and engaging, and by others as a entertaining blend of fact and fiction.
- Strauss contributed to numerous London periodicals, worked as a ghostwriter for other authors, and wrote for the stage. His farce A Model Uncle was successfully produced at Drury Lane in 1868.
- He covered the Austro-Prussian War as a war correspondent and was present at the Battle of Königgrätz (Sadowa).

Later life and death
- In later life Strauss faced financial difficulties. William Gladstone arranged a civil list pension for him, but he remained in modest circumstances.
- In 1879 he entered the Charterhouse almshouse in London and later received an outpension from its governors.
- He died unmarried in Teddington, England, on 2 September 1887.

Selected publications (highlights)
- The German Reader (1852)
- A Grammar of the German Language (1852)
- A Grammar of the French Language (1853)
- Moslem and Frank (1854)
- England’s Workshops (with others, 1864)
- The Old Ledger: A Novel (1865)
- Men Who Have Made the German Empire (1875)
- The Reminiscences of an Old Bohemian (1882)
- Stories by an Old Bohemian (1883)
- Philosophy in the Kitchen: General Hints on Foods and Drinks (1885)
- Dishes and Drinks (1887)
- The Emperor William (1888)

Notes
- The Jewish Encyclopedia lists Strauss with a standard entry, but records indicate no documented Jewish heritage. In his own reminiscences he notes he was confirmed in the Protestant faith in Magdeburg.

Gustave Strauss’s life spanned Europe and Britain, and he made a distinctive mark as a prolific, versatile writer and as a central figure in London’s bohemian and literary circles.