Of all the different forms in which he wrote, he admitted that he most enjoyed musical comedies.
Alan Patrick Herbert was born at Elstead. His parents were P. H. Herbert, an Irishman who served in the India office, and Beatrice Selwyn Herbert, an English woman of social standing. She died of tuberculosis when Herbert was eight years old. As a young student at the Grange, Folkestone, he distinguished himself both academically and athletically. At Winchester College he became a willing apprentice to the art of platform speaking. He again distinguished himself by winning the king's medal for English verse for his dramatic "Messina," a fifty-stanza poem depicting the dismay caused by the Sicilian earthquake of 1908. His interest in light verse was growing, and as a young student he sent his compositions to Sir Owen Seaman, editor of Punch, who wrote marginal notes of encouragement and made numerous suggestions. His Stones of Venus, a set of verses, would appear in the 24 August 1910 edition of Punch. At Oxford he turned from the study of the classics to law. He obtained a first in jurisprudence, but did not take the bar examination; instead, he joined the Royal Naval Division, in which he served from 1914 to 1917 and rose to the rank of lieutenant.
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