J. D. BERESFORD
7 March 1873 - 2 February 1947
J. D. BERESFORD, novelist, playwright and poet, father of Elizabeth Beresford, creator of 'The Wombles', was born and raised in Castor.
John Davys Beresford, the son of an English clergyman, was crippled by polio in his youth. He is best remembered for his early science fiction novels, The Hampdenshire Wonder (1911; a.k.a. The Wonder, 1917 USA) and Goslings (1913; a.k.a. A World of Women, 1913 USA), and his later utopian novel What Dreams May Come... (1941). Some of his shorter genre works were collected in Nineteen impressions (1918) and Signs and Wonders (1921).
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The Wonder (a.k.a. The Hampdenshire Wonder) is an early science fiction classic which has aged remarkably well. The story is centred on people rather than technology and portrays the position of the gifted (or in this case superhuman) child as an outsider to the society around him. A real gem of a book. To buy a copy, click on the cover. |