The Way Of A Transgressor Part 1 Of 2

by Negley Farson

Part One Of Two Parts

A bestseller when it first appeared in 1936 and a book with continuing appeal, THE WAY OF A TRANSGRESSOR is Negley Farson's story of his life as an athlete, aviator and reporter in the early decades of this century. Farson had something to His aristocratic family lost its fortune and he had to make his own. He wanted everything in life, and he pretty nearly got it.

Farson was in France during the first war, in Russia during the revolution. He lived on a houseboat in British Columbia, fished the Caucasus, sold stories to keep alive. He was on a first name basis with most of the men who made headlines under Wilson, Hoover and Roosevelt.

Audio Cassette

Published July 1, 1987

About the author

At one time considered one of North America’s most intrepid journalists, Farson is probably little known today to most readers under the age of 50. Farson was raised by his eccentric grandfather, the notorious Civil War General James Negley who ‘made other men look like mongrel dogs.’ With such a colourful family background, it should have come as no surprise that young Negley was not only expelled from college but immediately emigrated on to England.

The excitement of the First World War soon lured him even further afield. The young student, now turned journalist, soon showed up in Russia and was present in Red Square the day the Bolshevik Revolution broke out. Farson went on to become one of the most renowned foreign correspondents of his day. He covered a host of varied and exciting world events including interviewing Gandhi in India, witnessing bank-robber John Dillinger’s naked body in the morgue just after he had been shot down by Hoover’s men, and meeting Hitler, who described Farson’s small blond son, Daniel, as a “good Aryan boy.”
A renowned fly-fisherman, Farson’s private life was just as turbulent as his journalism career. He partied with F. Scott Fitzgerald and supposedly out-drank Ernest Hemingway