Francis Brett Young

Biography

Francis Brett Young was an English doctor and novelist, whose short story “A Message” was published in The London Mercury in January of 1923. Young was born in Halesowen, West Midlands in 1884, and received his schooling from Epsom College and University of Birmingham to become a doctor like his father (Mulling). His mother died when he was fourteen and away at boarding school. He married Jessie Hankinson in 1908 after becoming a fully qualified physician (Mulling). They remained happily married their whole lives, he dedicated his epic poem to her with talk of his “unwavering love” (Hall 134)

Young authored over thirty novels that were all widely read, translated, and adapted in his time (Hall 8). Most, if not all, of them have to do with the medical profession in some way, for Young considered “all [he] know[s] about human nature” to have come from his time working as a doctor (Hall 51). His works, many of which are in the regionalist tradition, are also deeply influenced by the geography of the places he lived and travelled, especially Worcestershire, Devon, German East Africa, Capri (an island off the coast of Italy), and South Africa (Hall 71) Foremost a novelist and poet, Young’s short stories and plays are rarely mentioned as a major part of his canon. “A Message” is related to Young’s life experience because, like much of his other works, it contains both war and the medical professions. The short story is set during the Boer War in South Africa, where Young travelled often and lived leading up to the end of his life in 1954.