John Oxenham(1852-1941)
- Writer
English novelist and poet John Oxenham was born William Arthur
Dunkerley in Manchester, England, in 1852. His entry into the literary
world was not as a writer but as a publisher; with several partners he
started the publication "The Idler", and later on the weekly "To-Day".
He traveled extensively in Europe, Canada and the US as part of his
publishing duties, but eventually decided he wanted to be a writer more
than he did a publisher, and in 1913 he finished "Bees in Amber".
However, his publisher would not spend a penny promoting it, and even
asked that he limit the book to no more than 200 copies, as they knew
they could not sell that many. He eventually printed the book at his
own expense; it wound up selling almost 300,000 copies. During World
War I he self-published several volumes of poetry, and together they
sold over a million copies. He also wrote a song called "Hymn for the
Men at the Front" that eventually sold more than 8,000,000 copies.
Altogether he has published more than 40 novels, poetry books and
essays.
He died on January 23, 1941, in Worthing, England.
He died on January 23, 1941, in Worthing, England.