Jeffery Farnol (1878–1952)
Author of The Broad Highway
About the Author
Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Series
Works by Jeffery Farnol
Associated Works
The Big Book of Swashbuckling Adventure: Classic Tales of Dashing Heroes, Dastardly Villains, and Daring Escapes (2014) — Contributor — 64 copies, 2 reviews
Out of the Sand: Mummies, Pyramids, and Egyptology in Classic Science Fiction and Fantasy (2008) — Contributor — 5 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Farnol, John Jeffery
- Other names
- Farnol, Jeffery
- Birthdate
- 1878-02-10
- Date of death
- 1952-08-09
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Westminster Art School
- Short biography
- John Jeffery Farnol was born in Aston, Birmingham, England, UK, son of Kate Jeffery and Henry John Farnol, a factory-employed brass-founder. The marriage was to produce three more children, two boys and a girl. He was brought up in London and Kent. He attended the Westminster Art School, after he had lost his job in a Birmingham metal-working firm. In 1900, he married Blanche Wilhelmina Victoria Hawley (1883-1955), the 16 year-old daughter of the noted New York scenic artist H. Hughson Hawley; they moved to the United States, where he found work as a scene painter. They had a daughter, Gillian. He returned to England around 1910, and settled in Eastbourne, Sussex. In 1938, he divorced and remarried Phyllis Mary Clarke on 20 May, and adopted her daughter, Charmian Jane. He died aged 73 in Eastbourne on 9 August 1952, after a long battle with cancer.
He published his first romance novel My Lady Caprice in 1907. The success of his early novels led Farnol to become a professional writer. He produced around 40 novels and volumes of stories, and some non-fiction and children's books. His last book was completed by his second wife Phyllis. Two of his early books, The Amateur Gentleman and The Broad Highway, have been issued in a version edited by mediatic romance novelist Barbara Cartland. - Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Aston, Birmingham, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Birmingham, England, UK
London, England, UK
Kent, England, UK - Place of death
- Eastbourne, England, UK
- Burial location
- Cremated
- Associated Place (for map)
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
Recently re-read this after many years and still love it. It's a proper swashbuckling, bodice-ripping, sea-faring rip-roarer set in about 1650, full of colourful characters and colourful piratical language - though all strangely innocent now. In between there's lots to be learned about surviving on a desert island. The hero is consumed with vengeful thoughts which will likely destroy his chances of ending up happy with the heroine, and this theme is rather repetitiously rammed home. I didn't show more claim that it was great literature! You don't find out how it ends unless you read the sequel "Martin Conisby's vengeance". I'd call it comfort reading. Please don't tell anyone in my book group! show less
The Geste of Duke Jocelyn: I. on the Choice of an Era in Epic and Tragic Writing. Ii. on the Relations of Literature to a Republican Government. Iii. ... the Hermit of Warkworth, by Bishop Percy: 1 by Jeffery Farnol
i should make a shelf titled "random books christine picks out from online-literature.com at like 2 in the morning" but that is too long and i simply cannot be bothered
this was unironically a lot funnier than i expected? i don't think i realized this was kind of a parody. but it was actually funny. i liked the parts that weren't shockingly romantic. which does not make sense given this IS a romance but yk!!!
ft. - (paraphrased) "Lady Benedicta has run away!"
"Why?"
"Well you see she has legs show more and she wanted to leave-"
(found the actual quote lol
JOCELYN: Beseech ye, sir, now tell us an' ye may,
Why hath thy youthful Duchess run away?
“Fair Fool,” quoth the Friar, fanning himself with a frond of bracken, “'tis a hot day, a day reminiscent of the ultimate fate of graceless sinners, and I am like the day and languish for breath, yet, to thy so pertinent question I will, straightly and in few words, pronounce and answer thee, as followeth: Our Lady Benedicta hath run away firstly, brethren, for that being formed woman after Nature's goodly plan she hath the wherewithal to walk, to leap, to skip or eke to run, as viz.: item and to wit—legs. Secondly, inquisitorial brethren, she ran for an excellent good reason—as observe—there was none to let or stay her. And thirdly, gentle and eager hearers, she did flit or fly, leave, vacate, or depart our goodly town of Tissingors for that she had—mark me—no mind to stay, remain or abide therein. And this for the following express, rare and most curious reason as—mark now—in a word—”)
also ft. the multiple fourth wall breaks and my favorite part - show less
this was unironically a lot funnier than i expected? i don't think i realized this was kind of a parody. but it was actually funny. i liked the parts that weren't shockingly romantic. which does not make sense given this IS a romance but yk!!!
ft. - (paraphrased) "Lady Benedicta has run away!"
"Why?"
"Well you see she has legs show more and she wanted to leave-"
(found the actual quote lol
JOCELYN: Beseech ye, sir, now tell us an' ye may,
Why hath thy youthful Duchess run away?
“Fair Fool,” quoth the Friar, fanning himself with a frond of bracken, “'tis a hot day, a day reminiscent of the ultimate fate of graceless sinners, and I am like the day and languish for breath, yet, to thy so pertinent question I will, straightly and in few words, pronounce and answer thee, as followeth: Our Lady Benedicta hath run away firstly, brethren, for that being formed woman after Nature's goodly plan she hath the wherewithal to walk, to leap, to skip or eke to run, as viz.: item and to wit—legs. Secondly, inquisitorial brethren, she ran for an excellent good reason—as observe—there was none to let or stay her. And thirdly, gentle and eager hearers, she did flit or fly, leave, vacate, or depart our goodly town of Tissingors for that she had—mark me—no mind to stay, remain or abide therein. And this for the following express, rare and most curious reason as—mark now—in a word—”)
also ft. the multiple fourth wall breaks and my favorite part - show less
I think that I read this when I was about thirteen and, rereading it now, i can see what appealed to me. Pure escapism, it is entirely an Edwardian wet dream of manly arts (horse racing, boxing) and social mobility. Although the hero, of course, is a gentleman on his mother's side anyway.
The story moves along at an unbelievably swift pace - three days to set up a mansion in London and every possible assistance from an assortment of poachers, preachers and madmen met under hedges. Also just a show more touch anti-semitic by today's standards. All the good guys recognise immediately that the hero is one of them and the bad guys immediately dislike him - so he gets into a lot of fights. This book puts the swash into the buckle with avengeance.
A rollicking read in the manner of a cut price Charles Dickens without the social awareness. show less
The story moves along at an unbelievably swift pace - three days to set up a mansion in London and every possible assistance from an assortment of poachers, preachers and madmen met under hedges. Also just a show more touch anti-semitic by today's standards. All the good guys recognise immediately that the hero is one of them and the bad guys immediately dislike him - so he gets into a lot of fights. This book puts the swash into the buckle with avengeance.
A rollicking read in the manner of a cut price Charles Dickens without the social awareness. show less
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1794675.html
This was the best-selling novel of 1911, a romantic tale set in about 1811 where you know what is going to happen from the very first page, when Peter Vibart is promised a vast legacy if he will marry Sophia Sefton, but declares he would rather not. He flees metropolitan life to the village of Sissinghurst in Kent, where he encounters many good-hearted comic yokels and falls in love with a mysterious woman who comes to live with him in his cottage. show more She has firm, well-rounded arms. (That's arms, I say, arms.) It takes Peter (unlike the reader) most of the book to work out her real identity, and to deal with his rival for the marital legacy, his rather two-dimensionally villainous cousin, though I guess he is distracted by the occasional staggering coincidence and his anachronistic inclination towards Christian Science doctrine. I had never heard of Farnol before but apparently he was one of the most successful popular novelists of the first half of the twentieth century, and I suppose I can see the attraction of his undemanding yet breathless style. (Sissinghurst, by the way, was called Milkstreet in 1811 and changed its name only later in the century; more anachronism.) show less
This was the best-selling novel of 1911, a romantic tale set in about 1811 where you know what is going to happen from the very first page, when Peter Vibart is promised a vast legacy if he will marry Sophia Sefton, but declares he would rather not. He flees metropolitan life to the village of Sissinghurst in Kent, where he encounters many good-hearted comic yokels and falls in love with a mysterious woman who comes to live with him in his cottage. show more She has firm, well-rounded arms. (That's arms, I say, arms.) It takes Peter (unlike the reader) most of the book to work out her real identity, and to deal with his rival for the marital legacy, his rather two-dimensionally villainous cousin, though I guess he is distracted by the occasional staggering coincidence and his anachronistic inclination towards Christian Science doctrine. I had never heard of Farnol before but apparently he was one of the most successful popular novelists of the first half of the twentieth century, and I suppose I can see the attraction of his undemanding yet breathless style. (Sissinghurst, by the way, was called Milkstreet in 1811 and changed its name only later in the century; more anachronism.) show less
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