In addition, Beresford's books never deteriorated into empty sensationalism and easy sentimentality but consistently attempted to grapple with serious themes, speculating seriously and philosophically about the nature of society and the future of humanity. Finally, although they have been to some extent overshadowed by his novels, Beresford's brief and elliptical short stories contain some of his finest writing.
John Davys Beresford was born 7 March 1873 at Castor, a small Northamptonshire village near Peterborough, where his father, J. J. Beresford, was a minor canon and precentor of the Peterborough cathedral. When he was three he contracted infantile paralysis, which left him permanently crippled and necessitated his using a cane for the rest of his life; he blamed his condition on the carelessness of a nurse, and, although it never availed him, in his later life he argued fervently in favor of the validity of faith healing. (He argued equally fervently for socialism, pacifism, Christianity, Eastern mysticism, women's rights, vegetarianism, occultism, and the need for fundamental educational and governmental reforms.) He was educated at Oundle and at Kings School, Peterborough, and at age eighteen went to London to be apprenticed to an architect. He left architecture to work, with some success, as a bookseller, but by 1908 he had become a contributor to Punch and a reviewer for the Westminster Gazette.
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