Talk:Lester Ralph

Prabook

Here is his Prabook entry. FloridaArmy (talk) 00:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

A 'not to be confused with' namesake

It may be worth noting that this man should not be confused with a contemporary who had his own contributions to literary culture. Lester Ralph was also the name of a minor English novelist who was born in 1878, educated at Portsmouth Grammar School (Hampshire) and Merton College, Oxford University; was a professional actor before travelling and living abroad as a teacher, especially in the West Indies. From 1914 until his death aged 58 in 1936, with an interval for service in the British Army in WWI, he was a teacher at the Priory Grammar School for Boys, Shrewsbury (Shropshire), where he rose to Second Master (ie deputy head teacher). His background in the West Indies inspired his three novels: Eve of Saba (published 1922), Geogehan's Kid (also 1922, a copy being presented at the wedding of Princess Mary Princess Royal) and Hurricane (1923). He is currently unarticled in wikipedia and I do not know if someone is working on him but I would suggest any article created be titled 'Lester Ralph (novelist)' to avoid confusion with the presumably better- known American illustrator. The only published sources I know exist are a sketch in An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire by Gordon Dickins (1987) and his obituary in the Shrewsbury Chronicle newspaper (whose files are at Shropshire Archives, access restricted in covid pandemic).Cloptonson (talk) 18:10, 25 October 2021 (UTC)