Stanley John Weyman

Stanley John Weyman (pronounced [waɪ mæn], 7 August 1855 – 10 April 1928) was an English writer of historical romance. His most popular works were written in 1890–1895 and set in late 16th and early 17th-century France. While very successful at the time, they are now largely forgotten.

Biography

Stanley John Weyman was born on 7 August 1855 in Ludlow, Shropshire, the second son of a solicitor. He attended Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford, leaving in 1877 with a degree in Modern History. After a year's teaching at the King's School, Chester, he returned to Ludlow in December 1879 to live with his widowed mother.

Weyman was called to the bar in 1881, but had little success as a barrister, as he was shy, nervous and soft-spoken. However, his shortage of briefs gave him time to write. His short story "King Pippin and Sweet Clive" appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, although its editor, James Payn, himself a novelist, told Weyman it would be easier to make a living writing novels. Weyman viewed himself as a historian and so he was particularly encouraged by positive notices for an article he wrote on Oliver Cromwell that was published in the English Historical Review.

Weyman's ill-health prompted him in 1885 to spend several months in the South of France with his younger brother Arthur. In December of that year the brothers were arrested on suspicion of espionage at Aramits. A 24-page critical biography of Weyman published as an annex to an edition of his novel Ovington's Bank (1922) suggests that this ordeal galvanised the thirty-year-old Weyman, who until then had scraped a meagre income writing short stories. His first novel, The House of the Wolf, was published in 1890. Like many of his successful works, it is set in the French religious wars of the late 16th and early 17th centuries.