Reginald Birch

Happy Pollyooly Reginald Birch

Reginald Bathurst Birch (May 2, 1856 - June 17, 1943) was an English-American artist and illustrator. He was best known for his depiction of the titular hero of Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1886 novel Little Lord Fauntleroy, which started a craze in juvenile fashion. While his illustrated corpus has eclipsed his other work, he was also an accomplished painter of portraits and landscapes.......... Edgar Alfred Jepson (1863-1938) was an English author. He largely wrote mainstream adventure and detective fiction, but also supernatural and fantasy stories. He sometimes used the pseudonym R. Edison Page. Early life: Edgar Jepson was born on 28 November 1863 at Kenilworth, Warwickshire. He was the second of five sons and three daughters raised by Alfred and Margaret Jepson. Jepson's father, a dentist, originally hailed from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, while his mother was a native of London. Edgar Jepson attended Leamington College for Boys (today North Leamington School and later graduated from Balliol College, Oxford. After completing his education, Jepson spent some years living in Barbados, before taking up residence in the King's Bench Walk area of London where he began his literary career Career: As an author, Jepson used a pseudonym, R. Edison Page, for some of his short stories. In other works he collaborated with such authors as John Gawsworth, Arthur Machen and Hugh Clevely. Jepson was also a translator, notably of the Arsène Lupin stories of Maurice Leblanc. He was a member of the Square Club (from 1908) of established Edwardian authors, and one of the more senior members of the New Bohemians drinking club. Jepson edited Vanity Fair magazine for a short period, during which he employed Richard Middleton. After Middleton's death Jepson did much to preserve the latter's memory. Two of Jepson's children became writers. His son Selwyn Jepson was a crime writer, and his daughter, Margaret (married name Birkinshaw), published novels as Margaret Jepson, including Via Panama (1934). Margaret's younger daughter is the novelist Fay Weldon. Edgar Jepson died on 11 April 1938 at his home in Hampstead. He was survived by his son and both daughters and his former wife Frita Bisham Holmes, daughter of violinist and composer Henry Holmes....................