Young, Francis Brett

(1884-1954)

   He was born at Halesowen, Worcestershire, educated at Epsom College, Surrey, and qualified as a doctor at Birmingham in 1907. His experiences at school and university were the basis of his early novel The Young Physician (1919). His novel Marching on Tanga (1917) is based on his experiences as a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps. His later novel My Brother Jonathan (1928) was a huge success. The war affected his health so badly that he had to give up doctoring. He and his wife settled in Capri until 1929, where he continued to write. They traveled a great deal, settling back in Worcestershire, England, in 1932. After World War II they moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where he died; his ashes were buried in Worcester Cathedral. Birmingham University awarded him the honorary degree of D.Litt. in 1950. He is known for his novels, short stories and poetry. Some of his poems: "104° Fahrenheit," "A Farewell to Africa," "After Action," "Atlantic Charter, A.D. 1620-1942," "On a Subaltern Killed in Action," "Song at Santa Cruz," "The Dhows," "The Rain-Bird."

   Sources: America Forever New: A Book of Poems. Sara Brewton and John E. Brewton, eds. Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). Poems 1916-1918 of Francis Brett Young. E.P. Dutton, 1920. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Eternal Sea: An Anthology of Sea Poetry. W.M. Williamson, ed. Coward-McCann, 1946. The Home Book of Modern Verse. Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. Henry Holt, 1953. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).