George Linnaeus Banks (18211881), British miscellaneous writer, was born at Birmingham on the 2nd of March 1821. After a brief experience in a variety of trades, he became at the age of seventeen a contributor to various newspapers, and subsequently a playwright, being the author of two plays, a couple of burlesques and several lyrics. Between 1848 and 1864 he edited in succession a variety of newspapers, including the Birmingham Mercuryand the Dublin Daily Express, and published several volumes of miscellaneous prose and verse. He died in London on the 3rd of May 1881.