The New Student's Reference Work/Weyman, Stanley John

Wey′man, Stanley John, English novelist, was born at Ludlow, Shropshire on Aug. 7, 1855, and educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford. Studying law, he was called to the bar and practiced on circuit from 1881 to 1889, when his first work, The House of the Wolf — a romance of French history — appeared. After this his health necessitated travel abroad, and he abandoned law altogether. His more notable novels include The New Rector, The Story of Francis Cludde and A Gentleman of France. The success of the latter, which was published in 1893 and at once translated into many European languages, was immediate, and it has proved one of the most successful of recent historical romances. His later stories are Under the Red Robe, My Lady Rotha, The Red Cockade, The Man in Black, The Castle Inn, The Long Night, Stane Crow Farm, The Abbess of Vlaye, In King's Byways, Shrewsbury and the Memoirs of a Minister of France. He is a vivid and picturesque writer, and has been most successful in his treatment of themes drawn chiefly from the era of medieval France.