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My Brother Jonathan
MY BROTHER JONATHAN [Hardcover] Brett Young, Francis.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1928
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57 people want to read
About the author
Francis Brett Young
133 books22 followersFrancis Brett Young was born in 1884 at Hales Owen, Worcestershire, the eldest son of Dr Thomas Brett Young.
Educated at Iona Cottage High School, Sutton Coldfield and Epsom College, Francis read Medicine at Birmingham University before entering general practice at Brixham in 1907. The following year he married Jessie Hankinson whom he had met during his medical studies. She was a singer of some repute, having appeared as a soloist in Henry Wood's Promenade Concerts.
Francis based one of his earliest novels Deep Sea (1914) in Brixham but was soon to be caught up in the Great War. He served in the R.A.M.C. in East Africa, experiences recorded in Marching on Tanga.
After the war Francis and Jessie went to live in Capri where a number of novels with African as well as English backgrounds were produced. Popular success came in 1927 when Francis was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Portrait of Clare.
The Brett Youngs returned to England in 1929, staying for a while in the Lake District before settling at Craycombe House in Worcestershire in 1932. During this period Francis was at the height of his fame and his annually produced novels were eagerly awaited.
During the Second World War Francis laboured on his long poem covering the spread of English history from prehistoric times. Entitled The Island, it was published in 1944 and regarded by Francis as his greatest achievement.
Following a breakdown in his health Francis and Jessie moved to South Africa where he died in 1954. His ashes were brought back to this country and interred in Worcester Cathedral.
Educated at Iona Cottage High School, Sutton Coldfield and Epsom College, Francis read Medicine at Birmingham University before entering general practice at Brixham in 1907. The following year he married Jessie Hankinson whom he had met during his medical studies. She was a singer of some repute, having appeared as a soloist in Henry Wood's Promenade Concerts.
Francis based one of his earliest novels Deep Sea (1914) in Brixham but was soon to be caught up in the Great War. He served in the R.A.M.C. in East Africa, experiences recorded in Marching on Tanga.
After the war Francis and Jessie went to live in Capri where a number of novels with African as well as English backgrounds were produced. Popular success came in 1927 when Francis was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Portrait of Clare.
The Brett Youngs returned to England in 1929, staying for a while in the Lake District before settling at Craycombe House in Worcestershire in 1932. During this period Francis was at the height of his fame and his annually produced novels were eagerly awaited.
During the Second World War Francis laboured on his long poem covering the spread of English history from prehistoric times. Entitled The Island, it was published in 1944 and regarded by Francis as his greatest achievement.
Following a breakdown in his health Francis and Jessie moved to South Africa where he died in 1954. His ashes were brought back to this country and interred in Worcester Cathedral.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 25, 2009
This is in no way a happy story, but it is a brilliant novel, and I loved every page. First published in 1928 it is wiritten in FBY usual rather flowery style, but is hugely readable and I engaged with the characters instantly. It paints an amazingly clear picture of medicine and general practice in the early twentieth century, before the NHS. The living conditions of the poor in the Black Country of this period are discribed with unflinching honesty - and that alone could make this a very memorable book. However there are so many dramatic twists and turns in the telling of the story of Dr Jonathan Dakers life, over about 600 pages, that it is amazing that this book has ceased to be printed. I finished this book a few hours ago, and I can't get these characters out of my head. I loved it, but it left me feeling sad.
March 20, 2015
I read this too long ago to remember details, all I know is I loved it so much! Time for a reread.
August 14, 2021
Francis Brett Young,in this book showed the two brothers where Jonathan was on several occasions over shadowed by his younger brother. He had an eminent love for poetry,which ruined most of his relationships. He decided to give up relationship issues and studied hard to become a doctor. He graduated and he was hired as a medical personnel just to find that the first patient to work on was his who had died of a car accident,this shocked him therefore his boss decided to transfer him.
October 29, 2024
My parents had always been fond of an old film called “My Brother Jonathan”. It starred Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray, the husband and wife acting team who my parents liked to go and see on stage performing old fashioned rep in the 1980s.
I was intrigued to find out that the film was based on a novel from 1928 by someone called Francis Brett Young. When I managed to get hold of a copy of his novel, I found it was darker, brooding and much more complex than the film adaptation.
In the novel, Jonathan’s mother is even crueller and hideously more selfish than the dreadful woman in the film. His father is even more deluded and self centred. And Jonathan’s brother, Harold, must surely be the most ungrateful and shallow young man ever to have sponged his entire life off a cruelly abused and exploited sibling.
It strikes me that the novel should perhaps more accurately have been called “My Brother Harold” as it’s written mostly from the point of view of earnest Jonathan who lives his life solely for Harold - obsessing about him, making excuses for him, slaving away for him.
Harold, on the other hand, takes his brother’s sacrifices completely for granted. He’s so oblivious to all that his self-denying brother does for him, it’s clear that Harold has never actually given “His Brother Jonathan” a single thought in his entire selfish life. So perhaps the title’s intended ironically?
I found in Francis Brett Young something of the same flavour that I’ve enjoyed in books by his contemporaries, AJ Cronin and Warwick Deeping. Curiously, all three authors had trained as medical doctors before fighting in the First World War and then turning to writing as a career. Is it something about a medical man’s trained, objective eye that gives all three their precise, detached style of writing?
Francis Brett Young, like Cronin and Deeping, writes about people on the outside - people ostracised because they’re different in some way. Their characters are at odds with the system. Even their family is against them. They’re emotionally repressed loners with hearts secretly bursting.
Jonathan’s life is a struggle at every turn. It seems he’s incapable of happiness - or at least, any hope of happiness has been ground out of him by cruel circumstance. People are selfish, shallow and unkind, nature is indifferent and circumstances are crushing.
And yet despite all that unremitting gloom, I can’t wait to get started on my next Francis Brett Young novel. Now why is that, I wonder?
I was intrigued to find out that the film was based on a novel from 1928 by someone called Francis Brett Young. When I managed to get hold of a copy of his novel, I found it was darker, brooding and much more complex than the film adaptation.
In the novel, Jonathan’s mother is even crueller and hideously more selfish than the dreadful woman in the film. His father is even more deluded and self centred. And Jonathan’s brother, Harold, must surely be the most ungrateful and shallow young man ever to have sponged his entire life off a cruelly abused and exploited sibling.
It strikes me that the novel should perhaps more accurately have been called “My Brother Harold” as it’s written mostly from the point of view of earnest Jonathan who lives his life solely for Harold - obsessing about him, making excuses for him, slaving away for him.
Harold, on the other hand, takes his brother’s sacrifices completely for granted. He’s so oblivious to all that his self-denying brother does for him, it’s clear that Harold has never actually given “His Brother Jonathan” a single thought in his entire selfish life. So perhaps the title’s intended ironically?
I found in Francis Brett Young something of the same flavour that I’ve enjoyed in books by his contemporaries, AJ Cronin and Warwick Deeping. Curiously, all three authors had trained as medical doctors before fighting in the First World War and then turning to writing as a career. Is it something about a medical man’s trained, objective eye that gives all three their precise, detached style of writing?
Francis Brett Young, like Cronin and Deeping, writes about people on the outside - people ostracised because they’re different in some way. Their characters are at odds with the system. Even their family is against them. They’re emotionally repressed loners with hearts secretly bursting.
Jonathan’s life is a struggle at every turn. It seems he’s incapable of happiness - or at least, any hope of happiness has been ground out of him by cruel circumstance. People are selfish, shallow and unkind, nature is indifferent and circumstances are crushing.
And yet despite all that unremitting gloom, I can’t wait to get started on my next Francis Brett Young novel. Now why is that, I wonder?
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews