Filson Young

Alexander Bell Filson Young (1876–1938) was a journalist from Northern Ireland, who published the first book about the sinking of the RMS Titanic, called Titanic, in 1912, only 37 days after the sinking. He was also an essayist, war correspondent in the Boer War and World War I, a programmes advisor to the BBC, and the author of two novels. Beside his literary work, he was an organist and composer, and a pioneer of motoring and aviation.

Biography

Alexander Bell Filson Young was born in Ireland in 1876, at Ballyeaston, County Antrim. He was the son of the Revd. William Young and Sarah Young (née Filson).

His first publication was A Psychic Vigil (1896), which he issued under the pseudonym, 'X. Rays'.

Securing a job as a war correspondent for The Manchester Guardian, he was in South Africa during the Second Boer War. His accounts of his experiences and observations there formed the basis of his book, The Relief of Mafeking... With an account of some earlier episodes (1900). This was followed in 1901 by his A Volunteer Brigade: notes of a week's field training...and 'Mastersingers', musical criticism

Young was an early motoring enthusiast, and in 1904 published The Complete Motorist: being an account of the evolution and construction of the modern motor-car, with notes on the selection, use and maintenance of the same, and on the pleasures of travel upon the public roads (which went into eight editions), and The Joy of the Road (1907). To make a career in publishing he wrote continually on his many enthusiasms and on subjects which would interest the public. In 1903 appeared his Ireland at the Cross Roads; in 1905 his novel, The Sands of Pleasure (at the time considered a scandalous account of prostitution in Paris); in 1906 his Venus and Cupid: an impression.. after Velasquez..., his Christopher Columbus and the New World and his Mastersingers: appreciations; in 1907 his The Wagner Stories and The Lover's Hours (poems); in 1908 a second novel, When the Tide Turns; in 1909 Memory Harbour: essays; in 1911 More Mastersingers (a second volume of musical criticism); in 1912 Opera Stories, his Letters from Solitude and Other Essays (reprinted from the Saturday Review) and A House in Anglesey (privately printed). Young also edited Outlook, and literary columns in The Saturday Review and the Daily Mail.