His autobiography written in 1912. That would place him around 50 years old. He had a lot of living and writing to do before he passed out of this world.

I’m going to quote from certain passages in the book.

Links with a Vanished Day (Chapter 5)
With the rush of modernity almost everything of the old days has gone. But forty years ago, village people were still old fashioned; they observed times and seasons; they were primitive in their emotions, and especially in their love-making; they believed in homemade remedies more than in the stuff from the doctor’s shelves, and they were by no means free of the superstitious element, which had a strong flavor of Medievalism.

Bookdays and Schooldays (Chapter 7)
“I am one of those unfortunate people who never had an education. I was, at one time or another under the care of various governesses and preceptors, and I saw the insides of various schools, but I never learnt anything from the first , nor (until I was over sixteen) stopped more than a few weeks within the second. The lameness and pain to which I have already referred made school life an impossibility for me. I do not think I should ever have taken very kindly to it, either, under ordinary circumstances – it suited me much better to wander about amongst the woods and fields , making aquaintences with the world of birds and animals, than to sit within four walls. I believe some of the people I was dull – maybe stupid. I know that despite the efforts of two maiden aunts I did not know my alphabet when my fifth birthday came. But my uncle, Mr. Alexander Cockfield, a good Scotsman from Dunbar, who travelled a lot in Canada and North America, and afterwards used to bring me books from across the Atlantic, taught me to read anything even the stiff names in the Book of Chronicles. Nobody ever taught me to write, and I never had a spelling lesson in my life nor owned a spelling book. Having once begun to read, I proceeded to read with avidity.”
(avidity means extreme eagerness or enthusiasm….I didn’t know)

“My uncle Mr. Cockfield, was not only a man who had read widely himself; he had the gift, through unconscious persuasion, of arousing the love of books and of reading in other people and certainly in me.”

“And as soon as ever I began to read and found for myself that here was a new and wonderful world – such a world as I had never dreamed of - I read hungrily and persistently.

“The first three books which made a deep and abiding impression were the Pilgrim’s Progress, Don Quixote, and Hereward the Wake; then a little later, Nicholas Nickleby.

Green Days in London (Chapter 10)

Fletcher tried his hand at teaching young children, mostly out of financial necessity. He soon learned this was not his calling and was overjoyed when he received an invitation to come to London and do editorial work. So in 1881 he went London.

Authorship and Journalism (Chapter 12)

After London Fletcher went to Yorkshire and in his words, “I was concerned with the problem of how to make bread and butter by the use of my pen. I was quite certain that I was not fitted for any other occupation.” Subsequently after having written for five years it wasn’t until his first novel of any length, When Charles the First was King, was published that he considered himself a professional author.   Initially this was a three volume set. Fletcher was exposed to the politics of the day, which at times, was quite volatile. However in the numerous books I have read by Fletcher, politics never really entered into his writing.