Negus is a drink made of wine, often port, mixed with hot water, oranges or lemons, spices and sugar.
In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Catherine is given it at Thrushcross Grange by the Lintons; it appears in several works by Charles Dickens, namely Sketches by Boz, The Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol (during the party at Fezziwig's), Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House; in Harriette Wilson's Memoirs and Grace Dalrymple Elliott's Journal of My Life During the French Revolution; and in John Buchan's Midwinter.
Anthony Trollope in The Small House at Allington portrays the rustic Earl de Guest's violent disgust at the thought of the drink.
Negus makes a number of appearances as a tonic in The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy and in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels and a similar reference is made in Written in My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon.
Hyacinth Robinson is offered a glass of Negus three times by Mrs. Crookenden in The Princess Casamassima by Henry James.