John Oxenham(1852-1941)

English novelist and poet John Oxenham was born William Arthur Dunkerley in Manchester, England, in 1852. His entry into the literary world was not as a writer but as a publisher; with several partners he started the publication "The Idler", and later on the weekly "To-Day". He traveled extensively in Europe, Canada and the US as part of his publishing duties, but eventually decided he wanted to be a writer more than he did a publisher, and in 1913 he finished "Bees in Amber". However, his publisher would not spend a penny promoting it, and even asked that he limit the book to no more than 200 copies, as they knew they could not sell that many. He eventually printed the book at his own expense; it wound up selling almost 300,000 copies. During World War I he self-published several volumes of poetry, and together they sold over a million copies. He also wrote a song called "Hymn for the Men at the Front" that eventually sold more than 8,000,000 copies. Altogether he has published more than 40 novels, poetry books and essays.

He died on January 23, 1941, in Worthing, England.