John Prebble
John Edward Curtis Prebble,
Early life
He was born in
The High Girders
He became a journalist in 1934 and served during World War II with the
One of his first big successes was The High Girders (1956), a description of the
Fire and Sword Trilogy
The Fire and Sword Trilogy is about the fall of the
His later works, Mutiny (1975) and The King's Jaunt (1988) would extend the theme. The Highland Clearances remains one of his best known works perhaps because the subject of the
Prebble makes a case that there was a conscious effort to remove Highlanders and Islanders from Scotland. Others argue that it was purely economic and social factors which led to the population decline in rural Scotland. The
Other media
His short story My Great-Aunt Appearing Day, first published in 1952 in Lilliput magazine, became the basis of the 1955 film White Feather. He wrote an article entitled "Slaughter in the Sun" for Lilliput in 1958, on which the film Zulu (1964) would be based, co-written by Prebble and the director, Cy Endfield. He contributed to television on the limited serials The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1970), Elizabeth R (1971) and The Borgias (1981).[5]
He also wrote radio dramas and documentaries for the BBC. They were usually, but not always, based on his published works. For example, in 1977, he wrote an adaptation of John Buchan's The Three Hostages.[6]
Personal
He was married to the artist Betty (Golby) Prebble. He had a daughter, Sarah Prebble, and two sons, Jolyon and actor and narrator Simon Prebble. His first wife died in 1993 and he married his long-term mistress[7] Jan Reid in 1994.
Publications include
Fiction
- Where the Sea Breaks, Secker & Warburg, 1944
- Edge of Darkness, Secker and Warburg, 1947
- Age without Pity, Secker & Warburg, 1950
- The Brute Streets, Secker & Warburg, 1954
- The Mather Story, Secker & Warburg, 1954
- My Great-Aunt, Appearing Day, And Other Stories, Secker and Warburg, 1958
- The Buffalo Soldiers, New York Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1959
- Spanish Stirrup, and other stories, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973
History
- Disaster at Dundee, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1956 (also published as High Girders: The Tay Bridge Disaster, 1879, Secker and Warburg, 1975)
- Culloden, Secker & Warburg, 1961
- The Highland Clearances, Secker & Warburg, 1963
- Glencoe: The Story of the Massacre, Secker & Warburg, 1966
- The Lion in the North: A Personal View of Scotland's History, Penguin Books, 1973, ISBN 0-14-003652-0
- Darien: The Scottish Dream of Empire (also published as Darien: A Scots Colony in the New World, 1698–1700), 1968, about the Darien scheme
- Mutiny: Highland Regiments in Revolt, 1743–1804, 1975, ISBN 0-14-004328-4
- The Borgias (with Sarah Bradford), 1981
- The King's Jaunt: George IV in Scotland, August, 1822, ISBN 1-84158-068-6(originally published in 1988)
Other books
- Elephants and Ivory: True Tales of Hunting and Adventure, John Alfred Jordan (as told to John Prebble); also published as Mongaso Man Who Is Always Moving: The Story of an African Hunter John Alfred Jordan (1956)
- John Prebble's Scotland, Secker & Warburg, 1984, ISBN 0-436-38634-8
- Landscapes and Memories, An Intermittent Autobiography, Harper Collins, London, 1993 ISBN 0-00-215184-7
Films
- Culloden, BBC documentary, 1964 written by Prebble and directed by Peter Watkins.[8]
- Zulu, screenplay
Honours and awards
Footnotes
References
- ISBN 9781491883853. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
But much the most fascinating to me of all his relations was his great grandmother's brother, Charles Petley who brought back to Kent a Cheyenne Indian called Dawn as his second wife. John, with a certain amount of literary licence wrote a book based on her story and called My Great Aunt Appearing Day. He recognised the generation slip. She really was his great great aunt. In the copy he gave me when it was published in 1958, he wrote a little confusingly perhaps, "Jan Reid from her great great nephew."
- ^ ISBN 978-0241304105.
- ^ "The Independent Obituary". Archived from the original on 19 August 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2006.
- ^ Daily Telegraph "John Prebble - Telegraph". Archived from the original on 28 February 2016. Retrieved 24 June 2015.
- ^ "John Prebble [Obituary]". The Telegraph. 1 February 2001.
- ^ "Richard Hannay in The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan on BBC Radio & in other media". Archived from the original on 26 February 2006. Retrieved 14 June 2006.
- ^ "John Prebble’s ‘other woman’ lifts lid on affair" Archived 4 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine The Scotsman 3 January 2014
- ^ "Peter Watkins films – Culloden". Retrieved 14 June 2006.
External links
- John Prebble at IMDb