A.P. Herbert

English novelist and essayist Alan Patrick Herbert was born in London, England, in 1890. An Oxford graduate, he served in the Royal Navy in World War I and took part in the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in Turkey, which resulted in heavy casualties and a resounding defeat for the Allied forces. He later fought in France, where he was so severely wounded that he received a medical discharge. He was admitted to the bar in 1918, and served for two years as a private secretary to a member of the British Parliament. In 1924 he became a staff writer for "Punch" magazine--to which he had been a contributing writer since 1910--and in 1935 he was elected to the British Parliament as an Independent representing Oxford. His best-known novels are probably "The House by the River" and "The Water Gipsies", both of which were turned into successful films.