H. de Vere Stacpoole (Henry de Vere Stacpoole) Biography

novelist of Irish descent, born in Kingstown, Co. Dublin; he studied medicine at St George's and St Mary's Hospitals, London. He travelled as a ship's doctor on several voyages to distant places and many of his fifty novels had a romantic island setting. His early novels showed the influence of the fin de siècle writers surrounding The Yellow Book with whom he associated. They include The Crimson Azalea (1907), set in Japan, and his best-known novel, The Blue Lagoon (1908), which tells a story of innocence mixed with sex, involving two cousins marooned on a tropical island at the age of eight, who grow up, fall in love, produce a baby, and die a romantic death. Tropical backgrounds also featured in The Ship of Coral (1911), The Pearl Fishers (1915), and The Reef of Stars (1916). In 1942 his autobiography, Men and Mice, was published.