Military officer, miscellaneous writer. Entered service of East India Co. as cadet, 1817; lieut., 1816; captain, 1826; served in Burmese War, 1826-1827; invalided, 1831; subsequently promoted to a majority. Contributed to annuals and to numerous periodicals. "We take it for granted that everybody knows something of Major Campbell", wrote a reviewer in 1851, since everybody "reads some magazine or another", and Major Campbell "writes in all the magazines" (People's & Howitt's Journal, IV, 244). Author of Lays from the East, 1831; Winter Nights, 1850; Episodes in the War-Life of a Soldier, 1857; and other volumes of poems, sketches, and stories. Generally praised by reviewers for the melody of his verse and the interest of his prose pieces. W. M. Rossetti ("Memoir" of D. G. Rossetti, in Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family-Letters, I, 110) called him "a lively writer in a minor way".

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1973.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography