Background

John Davys Beresford was born on the 7th of March 1873 in Castor, Northamptonshire, England. He's the son of Rev. John James, an Anglican minister, and Adelaide Elizabeth (Morgan) Beresford. At age three and a half, he contracted polio when his nurse failed to change his wet clothes after a carriage ride. The resultant lameness caused him lifelong suffering. The influence of that childhood trauma may be seen from Beresford’s son Tristram’s statement that the disability made Beresford a successful writer, and from George M. Johnson’s analysis, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, to the effect that young Beresford’s lameness made him his mother’s favorite, but turned his father away from him toward an older brother.

Education

Beresford was educated haphazardy in local schools, at Peterborough King’s School until age sixteen, and to a great extent self-educated by reading.

Career

John was apprenticed in the field of architecture, he articled to local diocesan surveyor then to Gray’s Inn, London, afterwards he became a draftsman to architect Edwin T. Hall, London in 1895-1903, he was an agent for New York Life Insurance Company in 1903, he worked as an editor and advertising copywriter at W. H. Smith booksellers and he worked at S. H. Benson as an editorial adviser in London in 1918-23.

Works

More photos

• book

  • House-Mates

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

    1917
  • The Jervaise Comedy

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

    1919
  • The Camberwell miracle,

    (The Camberwell miracle, [John Davys Beresford] on Amazon....)

    1933
  • The Mountains of the Moon - Primary Source Edition

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

    1915
  • The middle generation 1933

Religion

John was a protestant fundamentalist till 1895, freethinker thereafter.

Personality

According to many who knew him, he was a gentle, kind, vigorously humorous man who possessed, in Wynne-Tyson’s description, “wholeness, happiness, and peace of mind.”

Quotes from others about the person

• Stableford: “It is probable that modern readers, familiar with the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino as well as the surreal fantasies of Nikolai Gogol and Franz Kafka, would find more in these stories than contemporary readers could have.”

Connections

John was married Linda Lawrence on the 28th of November 1903 then they got divorced, and he married again Beatrice “Trissie” Roskams in May 1913. He had children Tristam (from the 2nd marriage), Aden and Elizabeth.

Father:

John James

Mother:

Adelaide Elizabeth (Morgan) Beresford

1st wife:

Linda Lawrence

2nd wife:

Beatrice “Trissie” Roskams

Son:

Tristam Beresford

Son:

Aden Beresford

Daughter:

Elisabeth Beresford

References

• J. D. Beresford (Twayne's English Authors Series)
  1998