Warwick Deeping

For the anti-submarine trawler, see HMT Warwick Deeping.

George Warwick Deeping (28 May 1877 – 20 April 1950) was a prolific English novelist and short story writer, whose most famous novel was Sorrell and Son (1925).

Life

Born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, into a family of doctors, he was educated at Merchant Taylors' School. He proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge to study medicine and science, and then to Middlesex Hospital to finish his medical training. During the First World War, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. Deeping later gave up his job as a doctor to become a full-time writer.

His early work is dominated by historical romances. His later novels can be seen as attempts at keeping alive the spirit of the Edwardian age. He was one of the best selling authors of the 1920s and 1930s, with seven of his novels making the best-seller list. George Orwell was a strong critic of Deeping's, criticising his melodramatic plots.

Deeping also published fiction in several US magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post and Adventure.

He married Phyllis Maude Merrill and lived up to his death in Eastlands on Brooklands Road in Weybridge, Surrey.

Select bibliography

• Uther and Igraine (1903), his first published novel
• Love Among the Ruins (1904)
• The Seven Streams (1905)
• Bess of the Woods (1906)
• The Return of the Petticoat (1907)
• Bertrand of Brittany (1908)
• Mad Barbara (1908)
• The Red Saint (1909)
• The Lame Englishman (1910)
• The Rust of Rome (1910)
• Fox Farm (1911)
• Joan of the Tower (1911)
• Sincerity (1912)
• The House of Spies (1913)
• The Pride of Eve (1914)
• The Shield of Love (1914)
• Martin Valliant (1917)
• Unrest (1918)
• Valour (1918)
• Second Youth (1919)
• The Prophetic Marriage (1920)
• The House of Adventure (1921)
• Lantern Lane (1921)
• Orchards (1922)
• Apples of Gold (1923)
• Suvla John (1924)
• Sorrell and Son (1925)
• Doomsday (1927)
• Kitty (1927)
• Old Pybus (1928)
• Roper's Row (1929)
• Exiles (1930)
• The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping (1930)
• The Road (1931)
• The Ten Commandments (1931)
• The Secret Sanctuary or The Saving of John Stretton (1931)
• Old Wine and New (1932)
• Smith (1932)
• Two Black Sheep (1933)
• Seven Men Came Back (1934)
• Sackcloth Into Silk (1935)
• No Hero—This (1936)
• Blind Man's Year (1937)
• The Malice of Men (1938)
• Fantasia (1939)
• The Man Who Went Back (1940)
• Corn in Egypt (1941)
• The Dark House (1941)
• I Live Again (1942)
• Mr Gurney and Mr Slade ( 1944)
• Reprieve (1945)
• The Impudence of Youth (1946)
• Laughing House (1946)
• Portrait of a Playboy (1947)
• Time to Heal (1952)
• Man in Chains (1953), published posthumously
• The Old World Dies (1954)
• Caroline Terrace (1955)
• The Sword and the Cross' (1957)

Films

Movies based on Deeping's novels belong, with two exceptions, to the silent era. Unrest was filmed in 1920, Fox Farm in 1922, and Doomsday in 1928. Kitty (1929), directed by Victor Saville, was one of the first British talkies (arguably the very first; only the second half of the film had a soundtrack).

Sorrell and Son, based upon Deeping's experiences during the First World War, was filmed three times: It first appeared in 1927 as a silent movie, was remade in 1934 as a sound film, and turned into a TV mini-series in 1984.

External links

Sources

• Works by Warwick Deeping at Internet Archive
• Works by Warwick Deeping at Project Gutenberg of Australia

Other

• A 2002 essay by Mary Grover (Sheffield Hallam University), from The Literary Encyclopedia

References

• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 134. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.