Reade (1814-84) was an English novelist and dramatist best known for The Cloister and the Hearth (1861). This sensation novel, first serialised in The Argosy in the UK and The Atlantic in the USA before being published in three-volume book form in 1866, was a best-selling book in its day and considered by Reade to be his best novel. A highly-coloured tale of bigamy, murder and mistaken identity among 18th-century gentry, the book's morality was attacked by the American press though not by the English. It was quickly adapted for the stage by Augustin Daly, one of the most influential men in American theatre during his lifetime, to capitalise on the book's success, and later adapted by Reade himself first under the name Kate Peyton's Lovers which was then changed to Jealousy.