Jeffery Farnol
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 had three more children, two boys and a girl.] He was brought up in London and Kent. He attended the Westminster School of Art, after he had lost his job in a Birmingham metal-working firm.
In 1900 he married Blanche Wilhelmina Victoria Hawley (1883–1955), the 16 years 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. The marriage had a daughter, Gillian Hawley. He returned to England around 1910, and settled in Eastbourne, Sussex. In 1938, he divorced and remarried with Phyllis Mary Clarke on 20 May, and adopted her daughter, Charmian Jane.
On 9 August 1952, he died aged 73 in Eastbourne, after a long battle with cancer.
Farnol published his first romance novel My Lady Caprice in 1907. The success of his early novels led Farnol toeventually 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.
From Wikipedia
“The Frenchman beside me had been dead since dawn. His scarred and shackled body swayed limply back and forth with every sweep of the great oar as we, his less fortunate bench-fellows, tugged and strained to keep time to the stroke.”