Life, followed in 1892. Adams' health was failing rapidly from tuberculosis. He spent the winter of December 1892–February 1893 in Alexandria finishing a book attacking the British occupation of Egypt: The New Egypt was released after his death in 1893. His novel, A Child of the Age, a reworking of Leicester, an Autobiography, was brought out posthumously in 1894 by John Lane as the fourth book in its Keynote Series. It describes vividly the schooldays (at "Glastonbury") and poverty-stricken struggles of a would-be poet and scholar, Bertram Leicester, in a way understandably suffused with a fin-de-siècle melancholy. Other posthumous publications were Tiberius – a striking drama with an introduction by William Michael Rossetti, presenting a new view of the Emperor's character, and finally, Essays in Modernity in 1899. Suicide Adams shot himself dead at a boarding house in Margate, England, during a severe tubucular haemorrhage that would probably have been fatal in any case. He had long carried a pistol for this purpose. He was survived by his second wife, Edith (née Goldstone), who assisted his suicide but was not convicted of any crime. As a self-professed "child of his age", Adams combined in his life and work many distinctive features of fin de siècle British culture and Australian radical nationalism in the 1890s, including a strong sympathy with socialist and feminist movements. Literature and politics Adams's energy and drive can be seen in his large written output over a short lifetime. He often wrote quickly and did little revision, living as he did on income from writing. Songs of the Army of the Night has been reprinted in many editions, but the reputation of these poems derives from their engagement with social issues, rather than their poetic value. Adams displayed a deep sympathy with downtrodden races and men. As an activist in the Social Democratic Federation the rhetoric of At the West India Docks where London dock labourers were working for fourpence an hour, resonated in the labour movement. Some of his verse provoked resentment in Conservative circles, but Adams was part of a rapidly growing political working class movement fired by poverty and exploitation in Britain. As a writer of novels Adams connected with contemporary social issues. Although his work could be hasty and uneven, it is interesting for its treatment of themes such as the portrayal of women in Australia, of nationalism. For example, The Melbournians, is