William Gordon Stables

William Gordon Stables (21 May 1840 – 10 May 1910) was a Scottish medical doctor in the Royal Navy and a prolific author of adventure fiction, primarily for boys.

Life and career

William Gordon Stables was born in Aberchirder, in Banffshire (now part of Aberdeenshire) on 21 May 1840. He attended a school at Marnoch and Aberdeen Grammar School. After studying medicine at the University of Aberdeen, he served as a surgeon in the Royal Navy. He came ashore in 1875, and settled in Twyford, Berkshire.

Stables wrote over 130 books. The bulk of his large output is boys' adventure fiction, often with a nautical or historical setting. He also wrote books on health, fitness and medical subjects, and the keeping of cats and dogs. He was also a contributor of copious articles and stories to The Boy's Own Paper.

Stables has been regarded as one of the most prominent of the English imitators of Jules Verne, especially in his novels of polar adventure, like The Cruise of the Snowbird (1882), Wild Adventures Round the Pole (1883), From Pole to Pole (1886), and "his most ambitious novel," The Cruise of the Crystal Boat (1891).

Stables is also a notable pioneer of caravanning, being the first person to order a "gentleman's caravan" from the Bristol Wagon & Carriage Works, which he named 'Wanderer'. He travelled the length of Great Britain in 1885, resulting in his book The Gentleman Gypsy which helped popularise the hobby.

Stables died at his home in Twyford on 10 May 1910 from tuberculosis.

Selected works by Gordon Stables

Medical Life in the Navy (1868) The Domestic Cat (1876) Cats: Their Points and Characteristics (1877) Wild Adventures in Wild Places (1881) Aileen Aroon (1884) On Special Service: A Tale of the Sea (1886) Exiles of Fortune: A Tale of a Far North Land (1890) Two Sailor Lads (1892) The Dog: From Puppyhood to Age (1893) Sable And White: The Autobiography of a Show Dog (1894) A Souvenir of the "Wanderer" Caravan (1895) To Greenland and the Pole (1895) For Life and Liberty (1896) Off to Klondyke (1898) 'Twixt School and College (1901) With Cutlass and Torch (1901) Every Inch a Sailor (1903) In the Great White Land: A Tale of the Antarctic Ocean (1903) Our Friend the Dog (1903) Westward with Columbus (1906) Young Peggy McQueen (1906) The Sauciest Boy in the Service: A Story of Pluck and Perseverance (1911)