Hesketh Pearson

Edward Hesketh Gibbons Pearson (20 February 1887 – 9 April 1964) was an English actor, theatre director and writer. He is known mainly for his biographies; they made him the leading British biographer of his time, in terms of commercial success.

Early life Pearson was born in Hawford, Claines, Worcestershire, to a family with a large number of members in Holy Orders. His parents were Thomas Henry Gibbons Pearson, a farmer, and the former Amy Mary Constance Biggs. He was a great-great nephew of the statistician and polymath Francis Galton, whom he described in Modern Men and Mummers.

After the family moved to Bedford in 1896, he was educated there at Orkney House Preparatory School for five years, a period he later described as the only unhappy episode in his life, for the compulsive flogging beloved of its headmaster. At 14, he was sent to Bedford School, where he proved an indifferent student. Rebelling against his father's desire for him to study Classics to prepare himself for a career in Holy Orders, on graduation, he entered commerce but happily accepted his dismissal as a troublemaker when he inherited £1,000 from a deceased aunt. He employed the funds to travel widely, and on his return joined his brother's car business. and was sent to Mesopotamia, where the climate was conducive to treatment for tuberculosis. He recovered from that malady there but contracted several other diseases—septic sores, dysentery and malaria—and was close to death on three occasions. He attributed his survival to his practice of reciting long passages of Shakespeare while he was critically ill. He distinguished himself under fire and, on one occasion, received a severe head wound from shrapnel. He was subsequently awarded the Military Cross. He began to write as a journalist, and published some short stories and essays. In 1926 the anonymously published Whispering Gallery, purporting to be diary pages from leading political figures, caused him to be prosecuted for attempted fraud. He won the case, partly because (according to Michael Holroyd) his "engaging candour appealed to the jury".

Works Modern Men and Mummers (1921), which describes encounters with Francis Galton (whose great-great-great nephew he was) A Persian Critic (1923) The Whispering Gallery: Leaves from a Diplomat's Diary (1926) fictional diary, published as an anonymous hoax Iron Rations (1928) stories Doctor Darwin (1930) on Erasmus Darwin Ventilations: Being Biographical Asides (1930) The Fool of Love. A Life of William Hazlitt (1934) The Smith of Smiths: Being the Life, Wit and Humour of Sydney Smith (1934) Common Misquotations (1934) editor Gilbert and Sullivan: A Biography (1935) The Swan of Lichfield: being a selection from the correspondence of Anna Seward (1936) editor Labby: The Life and Character of Henry Labouchere (1936) Tom Paine. Friend of Mankind: A Biography (1937) Thinking It Over (1938) Skye High: The Record of a Tour through Scotland in the Wake of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell (1938) with Hugh Kingsmill The Hero of Delhi (1939) on John Nicholson This Blessed Plot (1942) with Hugh Kingsmill A Life of Shakespeare: With An Anthology of Shakespeare's Poetry (1942) Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality (1942) also G.B.S. A Full Length Portrait (US) Conan Doyle: His Life and Art (1943) Oscar Wilde, His Life and Wit (1946) Talking of Dick Whittington (1947) with Hugh Kingsmill Dickens: His Character, Comedy, and Career (1949) G.B.S. A Postscript (1950) The Last Actor-Managers (1950) Essays of Oscar Wilde (1950) editor About Kingsmill (co-author with Malcolm Muggeridge – regarding Hugh Kingsmill) Dizzy: The Life and Personality of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1951) The Man Whistler (1952)- (James McNeill Whistler) Walter Scott: His Life and Personality (1954) Beerbohm Tree: His Life & Laughter (1956) Gilbert: His Life and Strife (1957) - (W.S. Gilbert) Johnson and Boswell: The Story of Their Lives (1958) Charles II: His Life and Likeness (1960) also Merry Monarch, the Life and Likeness of Charles II (US) The Pilgrim Daughters (1961) also The Marrying Americans (US) Lives of the Wits (1962) Henry of Navarre (1963) Hesketh Pearson, By Himself (1965) autobiography Extraordinary People (1965) biographical essays