Hesketh Pearson was born in 1887 and educated at Bedford Grammar School. After two years in the City of London, he went onto the stage and, apart from seeing active service during the First World War in Persia and Mesopotamia, he continued to act until 1931 when he abandoned his stage career in order to write. His many biographies include those of Gilbert & Sullivan, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. He died in 1964.
