The House of Adventure

Chapter 2

George Deeping (1877–1950) was an English novelist and short story writer, best-known for his classic novel Sorrell and Son (1925). Born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, into a family of physicians, Deeping was educated at Merchant Taylors" School. He proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, to study medicine and science (receiving his MA in March 1902), then went 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 physician to become a full-time writer—but he drew on his war and medical experiences for most of his fiction.

Sorrell and SonHe was one of the best-selling writers in England during the 1920s and 1930s, with seven of his novels making the best-seller list. He was also a prolific writer of short stories, which appeared in such British magazines as Cassell’s, The Story-Teller, and The Strand. He also published fiction in U.S. magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post and the famous pulp magazine, Adventure. All of the short stories and novels that appeared in U.S. magazines were reprints from Great Britain. Well over 200 of his original short stories and essays that appeared in various British fiction magazines, uncollected during his lifetime, have been assembled in a multi-volume “Lost Stories” collection, delighting his scores of fans.

Cassell’sThe Story-TellerThe StrandThe Saturday Evening PostAdventureDeeping’s early work was dominated by historical romances, as is typical of British writers before World War I—look at his contemporary, Lord Dunsany, as another example. Dunsany largely abandoned the lyrical fantasy that was his trademark before the war, focusing instead on more somber subjects. Deeping’s later novels usually dealt with modern life, critical of twentieth-century civilization. His characters became distrustful of both the ruling elites and of the lower classes—often presented as a threat to embattled middle-class protagonists (such as himself).

Deeping’s most celebrated hero is Captain Sorrell, M.C., the ex-officer who after the First World War is reduced to a menial occupation in which he is bullied by those of a lower social class and less education.

—Karl Wurf

Rockville, Maryland