John Palmer

John Leslie Palmer (4 September 1885 – 5 August 1944) was an English theatre critic and prolific author. Under his own name, he wrote extensively about early English actors and about British literary figures. He also wrote fiction under the pseudonyms 'John Somers' and 'Christopher Haddon' and collaboratively (with Hilary St. George Saunders) as 'Francis Beeding' and 'David Pilgrim'.

Palmer lived in Geneva for eighteen years from 1920 to 1938, working in the Secretariat of the League of Nations. His long-term collaboration with Hilary Saunders, who was also an employee of the Secretariat, began during those years.

Biography

John Leslie Palmer was born on 4 September 1885 at Paddington in London.

Palmer studied at Balliol College in Oxford University where he was a Brackenbury history scholar.

In 1909 Palmer joined the staff of the weekly Saturday Review newspaper. The following year he was appointed as an assistant-editor and the dramatic critic for the publication, which roles he occupied until 1919. He established his reputation as a theatre critic by the quality of his writing and the publication of two books, The Censor and the Theatres (1912) and The Comedy of Manners (a study of the Restoration dramatists published in 1913).

John Palmer and Mildred Hodson Woodfield were married in 1911. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter.

Palmer's first work of fiction was published in February 1912, a book titled A Chord Once Struck which was published under the nom-de-plume of 'John Somers'. In 1914 a play written by Palmer called Over the Hills, described as a "comedy in one act", was published. During 1915 he had two books on George Bernard Shaw published, as well as another book of fiction, Peter Paragon: A Tale of Youth (published by Dodd, Mead & Co. of New York). Palmer also worked as the dramatic critic for the Evening Standard from 1916 to 1919.