Part of the stunning Collector's Library
Alan Patrick Herbert was born in 1890 and educated at Winchester
College and New College Oxford, Although he gained a First Class
degree in Jurisprudence and was called to the Bar, he never
practised law. He began writing for Punch in 1910, and joined the
staff of the magazine in 1924.
He enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1914, and
became a member of the Royal Naval Division which used naval
personnel as infantrymen. Commissioned in 1915 he served in
Gallipoli and in the last stages of the Battle of the Somme. He was
wounded in 1917, returned home and completed his first draft of The
Secret Battle, first published in 1919 to huge acclaim, with a
Preface by Winston Churchill. After the war, Herbert continued
writing the legal satires that had commenced in Punch with
Misleading Cases in the Common Law, many of which included his
alter ego, the litigious Albert Haddock. From 1935 to 1945, when
the seat was abolished, he was the independent Member of Parliament
for the University of Oxford , and his Matrimonial Causes Bill went
a long was to ease the pains of divorce. He was the author of more
than fifty books, consisting of novels, plays and poetry. He was
the father of the distinguished stage designer Jocelyn Herbert, and
died in 1971.
'Written with classic restraint and something of classic beauty,' (Arnold Bennett.)
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