Education
Born in Sydenham, Kent on 30 October 1861, he was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst.
Born in Sydenham, Kent on 30 October 1861, he was educated at Harrow and Sandhurst.
He is said to have introduced the game of polo to Southern California. After 17 years abroad, by 1900 Vachell was back in England and went on to write over 50 volumes of fiction including a popular school story, The Hill (1905), which gives an idealised view of life at Harrow and of the friendship between two boys. He also wrote 14 plays, the most successful of which in his lifetime was Quinneys (1914), made into a film in 1927.
"Quinneys" was first published as a book by John Murray, London in 1914.
lieutenant was later adapted again as The Story of Shirley Yorke. Vachell"s last autobiographical book, More from Methuselah (1951), was published in the year of his 90th birthday.
Although some fiction, like the stories in Bunch Grass (1912), is set in American ranching country, much of his writing concerns a comfortably prosperous English way of life which was echoed in his beautiful old house near Bath and his old-fashioned, distinguished appearance and manner. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
He died on 10 January 1955 in Somerset.
Royal Society of Literature.