John Cordy Jeaffreson
BiographyJohn Cordy Jeaffreson (January 14, 1831–February 2, 1901) was an English novelist and author of popular non-fiction. He also spent periods teaching and as an inspector of historical documents, or archivist.
He was born at Framlingham, Suffolk, the second son and ninth child of William Jeaffreson (1789–1865), a surgeon, and Caroline (died 1863), youngest child of George Edwards, tradesman there; and was named after his mother’s uncle by marriage, John Cordy (1781–1828) of Worlingworth and Woodbridge. After education at the grammar schools of Woodbridge and Botesdale, he was apprenticed to his father in August 1845; but matriculated at Pembroke College, Oxford, in June 1848, where among his undergraduate friends were the future novelists Henry Kingsley and Arthur Locker. After graduating B.A. in May 1852, Jeaffreson lived in London for about six years, working as a private tutor and lecturing in schools; and also began to write. From 1856 he was a journalist, writing from 1858 for the rest of his life for the Athenaeum. He became a student at Lincoln’s Inn in June of 1856 and was called to the bar in April of 1859 but never did practise law. For the rest of his life he moved in legal as well as in literary social circles.
Jeaffreson initially wrote novels, publishing Crewe Rise in 1854 and next year Hinchbrook, which ran as a serial in Fraser’s Magazine; but with Novels and Novelists from Elizabeth to Victoria (1858), compiled at the British Museum, he opened up a popularising vein of non-fiction that gradually became his main work.
Jeaffreson married on October 2, 1860, at St. Sepulchre’s Church, Holborn, Arabella Ellen, the only surviving daughter of William Eccles, F.R.C.S.; she survived him with a daughter, who died in 1909. After years of poor health that brought his work to an end, Jeaffreson died at his house in Maida Vale and was buried in Paddington Cemetery, Willesden Lane.
Bibliography (wildly incomplete)
Crewe Rise (1854)
Hinchbrook (1855)
Novels and Novelists from Elizabeth to Victoria (1858)
A Book about Doctors (1860)
Live it Down (1863)
Not Dead Yet (1864)
A Book about Lawyers (1866)
A Book about the Clergy (1870)
Brides and Bridals (1872)
A Book about the Table (1874)
The Real Lord Byron: New Views of the Poet’s Life (1883)
The Real Shelley: New Views of the Poet’s Life (1885)
Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson (1888)
The Queen of Naples and Lord Nelson (1889)
Other links
Wikisource
Wikipedia