Farjeon, J Jefferson
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1883-1955) UK author, son of B L Farjeon (1838-1903) [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] and younger brother of Eleanor Farjeon (1881-1965) [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], prolific (often as Anthony Swift) in the detective genre and as a playwright. The Ruritanian Mountain Mystery (1935) depicts the small country of Weldheim, which loses itself to history after World War One, becoming a kind of Lost World. In the frame story of Death of a World (1948), Aliens arrive on a dead Earth, where they discover the diary of an Englishman composed several decades after World War Two, just as World War Three is about to begin; this diary makes up the bulk of the text. He manages to survive the predicted nuclear Holocaust in an Underground Keep along with a few companions (see End of the World; Last Man), but the alien visitors find nothing but the broken-off diary itself; the Ruined Earth they contemplate seems entirely lifeless. The creaky interbellum mannerisms of this Scientific Romance seem only to emphasize its grimness. [JC]
Joseph Jefferson Farjeon
born London: 4 June 1883
died Hove, Sussex: 6 June 1955
works
- Mountain Mystery (London: Collins, 1935) [hb/]
- The Invisible Companion and Other Stories (London: Polybooks, 1946) [coll: chap: pb/Reina M Sington]
- Death of a World (London: Collins, 1948) [hb/N Manwaring]
links
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: B L Farjeon; Eleanor Farjeon.
- Picture Gallery
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