John Meade Falkner

John Meade Falkner is a novelist and poet English, born the May 8th 1858 and dead the July 22nd 1932 More known for its novel Moonfleet appeared in 1898, he was also a talented business man, as a director of the firm of Armstrong-Whitworth armament during the First World War.

Born in Manningford Bruce, Wiltshire, it grew in Dorchester and Weymouth then followed studies of archeology, paleography, medieval history and heraldic in Marlborough College and Hertford College of Oxford, obtaining a diploma of History in 1882. After Oxford, he briefly taught with the School Derby, then became in Newcastle tutor of the children of Sir Andrew Noble, which directed the Armstrong firm then, one of the most important munitions factories in the world. Falkner finishes by him succeeding the position of director in 1916. At the time of its business trips throughout the world, it brought back antiquities of all kinds. It left its position of director in 1921 and became Honorary Reader in Paleography at the University of Durham, like Honorary Librarian in Dean and Chapter Library. Falkner finishes its days like honorary conservative of the museum of Durham.

Its principal novels are:

• the stolen Stradivarius (1895)
• The Nebuly coat (published in 1903 but written in 1896)
• Moonfleet (1898) (Fritz Lang will make a film of it: the Smugglers of Moonfleet, in 1955)
• Moonfleet is the subject of a free adaptation as a cartoon of Rodolphe and He (Moonfleet Tome 1 - the crypt of Mohune - date of publication: November 8th, 2007 - Editions Robert Laffont)