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Jack Holborn
Abandoned as a baby and brought up on parish charity, Jack Holborn longs to leave cold-hearted England. So he stows away on a ship bound for Africa, but discovers, too late, that he has fallen in with a pirate crew.
227 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1964
3 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Leon Garfield
121 books50 followersLeon Garfield FRSL (14 July 1921 – 2 June 1996) was a British writer of fiction. He is best known for children's historical novels, though he also wrote for adults. He wrote more than thirty books and scripted Shakespeare: The Animated Tales for television.
Garfield attended Brighton Grammar School (1932-1938) and went on to study art at Regent Street Polytechnic, but his studies were interrupted first by lack of funds for fees, then by the outbreak of World War II. He married Lena Leah Davies in April, 1941, at Golders Green Synagogue but they separated after only a few months. For his service in the war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. While posted in Belgium he met Vivien Alcock, then an ambulance driver, who would go on to become his second wife (in 1948) and a well-known children's author. She would also greatly influence Garfield's writing, giving him suggestions for his writing, including the original idea for Smith. After the war Garfield worked as a biochemical laboratory technician at the Whittington Hospital in Islington, writing in his spare time until the 1960s, when he was successful enough to write full-time. In 1964, the couple adopted a baby girl, called Jane after Jane Austen, a favourite writer of both parents.
Garfield wrote his first book, the pirate novel Jack Holborn, for adult readers but a Constable & Co. editor saw its potential as a children's novel and persuaded him to adapt it for a younger audience. In that form it was published by Constable in 1964. His second book, Devil-in-the-Fog (1966), won the first annual Guardian Prize and was serialised for television, as were several later works (below). Devil was the first of several historical adventure novels, typically set late in the eighteenth century and featuring a character of humble origins (in this case a boy from a family of traveling actors) pushed into the midst of a threatening intrigue. Another was Smith (1967), with the eponymous hero a young pickpocket accepted into a wealthy household; it won the Phoenix Award in 1987. Yet another was Black Jack (1968), in which a young apprentice is forced by accident and his conscience to accompany a murderous criminal.
In 1970, Garfield's work started to move in new directions with The God Beneath the Sea, a re-telling of numerous Greek myths in one narrative, written by Garfield and Edward Blishen and illustrated by Charles Keeping. It won the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books. Garfield, Blishen, and Keeping collaborated again on a sequel, The Golden Shadow (1973). The Drummer Boy (1970) was another adventure story, but concerned more with a central moral problem, and apparently aimed at somewhat older readers, a trend continued in The Prisoners of September (1975) republished in 1989 by Lions Tracks, under the title Revolution!, The Pleasure Garden (1976) and The Confidence Man (1978). The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (1972) was a black comedy in which two boys decide to test the plausibility of Romulus and Remus using one of the boys' baby sister. Most notable at the time was a series of linked long short stories about apprentices, published separately between 1976 and 1978, and then as a collection, The Apprentices. The more adult themed books of the mid-1970s met with a mixed reception and Garfield returned to the model of his earlier books with John Diamond, which won a Whitbread Award in 1980, and The December Rose (1986). In 1980 he also wrote an ending for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished at the 1870 death of Dickens, an author who had been a major influence on Garfield's own style.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985. On 2 June 1996 he died of cancer at the Whittington Hospital, where he had once worked.
Garfield attended Brighton Grammar School (1932-1938) and went on to study art at Regent Street Polytechnic, but his studies were interrupted first by lack of funds for fees, then by the outbreak of World War II. He married Lena Leah Davies in April, 1941, at Golders Green Synagogue but they separated after only a few months. For his service in the war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. While posted in Belgium he met Vivien Alcock, then an ambulance driver, who would go on to become his second wife (in 1948) and a well-known children's author. She would also greatly influence Garfield's writing, giving him suggestions for his writing, including the original idea for Smith. After the war Garfield worked as a biochemical laboratory technician at the Whittington Hospital in Islington, writing in his spare time until the 1960s, when he was successful enough to write full-time. In 1964, the couple adopted a baby girl, called Jane after Jane Austen, a favourite writer of both parents.
Garfield wrote his first book, the pirate novel Jack Holborn, for adult readers but a Constable & Co. editor saw its potential as a children's novel and persuaded him to adapt it for a younger audience. In that form it was published by Constable in 1964. His second book, Devil-in-the-Fog (1966), won the first annual Guardian Prize and was serialised for television, as were several later works (below). Devil was the first of several historical adventure novels, typically set late in the eighteenth century and featuring a character of humble origins (in this case a boy from a family of traveling actors) pushed into the midst of a threatening intrigue. Another was Smith (1967), with the eponymous hero a young pickpocket accepted into a wealthy household; it won the Phoenix Award in 1987. Yet another was Black Jack (1968), in which a young apprentice is forced by accident and his conscience to accompany a murderous criminal.
In 1970, Garfield's work started to move in new directions with The God Beneath the Sea, a re-telling of numerous Greek myths in one narrative, written by Garfield and Edward Blishen and illustrated by Charles Keeping. It won the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books. Garfield, Blishen, and Keeping collaborated again on a sequel, The Golden Shadow (1973). The Drummer Boy (1970) was another adventure story, but concerned more with a central moral problem, and apparently aimed at somewhat older readers, a trend continued in The Prisoners of September (1975) republished in 1989 by Lions Tracks, under the title Revolution!, The Pleasure Garden (1976) and The Confidence Man (1978). The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (1972) was a black comedy in which two boys decide to test the plausibility of Romulus and Remus using one of the boys' baby sister. Most notable at the time was a series of linked long short stories about apprentices, published separately between 1976 and 1978, and then as a collection, The Apprentices. The more adult themed books of the mid-1970s met with a mixed reception and Garfield returned to the model of his earlier books with John Diamond, which won a Whitbread Award in 1980, and The December Rose (1986). In 1980 he also wrote an ending for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished at the 1870 death of Dickens, an author who had been a major influence on Garfield's own style.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985. On 2 June 1996 he died of cancer at the Whittington Hospital, where he had once worked.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 9, 2012
This book should be much better known than it is, especially on the North American side of the Atlantic. The version that I read was a British paperback, and I can't recommend any Americanized versions, as the hack-jobs editors still often do on British books to make them "understandable" to Yanks frequently remove a lot of nuance (see Scholastic's Harry Potter books, for example, compared to Bloomsbury's editions).
Leon Garfield's Jack Holborn is a wonderful depiction of the sea-going adventure of a lifetime, and a young orphan escaping his unhappy existence as a cobbler's apprentice, hoping for a better life.
I can't overstate the quality of Garfield's writing. Not only did he create lucid, engaging prose in service of a whopping good story, as we expect from our favorite authors, but he imbued Jack Holborn with an absolutely unique voice that stands up to the best of fiction aimed at young readers in any generation, and rewards readers of all ages with all that we most love in a good book.
Jack Holborn, born and subsequently abandoned sometime in the late 18th century, bears the name of the London parish in which he was found. He has no past, and no future until he stows away aboard the Charming Molly--the most conveniently moored ship he can find upon arriving in Bristol. The ship is boarded by pirates before he can throw himself on the mercy of captain and crew, and the adventure that follows takes Jack full circle from piracy on the high seas, to the slave markets of darkest Africa, to fortunes found and lost, and back to London to unravel the mysteries surrounding his birth.
Read it for the richly-layered story, for the author's remarkable facility with creating miracles of simple language, or for the sheer adventure of life aboard a pirate ship, but read it. You'll be glad you did.
Leon Garfield's Jack Holborn is a wonderful depiction of the sea-going adventure of a lifetime, and a young orphan escaping his unhappy existence as a cobbler's apprentice, hoping for a better life.
I can't overstate the quality of Garfield's writing. Not only did he create lucid, engaging prose in service of a whopping good story, as we expect from our favorite authors, but he imbued Jack Holborn with an absolutely unique voice that stands up to the best of fiction aimed at young readers in any generation, and rewards readers of all ages with all that we most love in a good book.
Jack Holborn, born and subsequently abandoned sometime in the late 18th century, bears the name of the London parish in which he was found. He has no past, and no future until he stows away aboard the Charming Molly--the most conveniently moored ship he can find upon arriving in Bristol. The ship is boarded by pirates before he can throw himself on the mercy of captain and crew, and the adventure that follows takes Jack full circle from piracy on the high seas, to the slave markets of darkest Africa, to fortunes found and lost, and back to London to unravel the mysteries surrounding his birth.
Read it for the richly-layered story, for the author's remarkable facility with creating miracles of simple language, or for the sheer adventure of life aboard a pirate ship, but read it. You'll be glad you did.
July 9, 2018
Channeling R. L. Stevenson, and "Treasure Island" this book skips along from one horrifying incident to the next. with nary a pause for breath. I first read it when I was about 8, just after it came out in 1964, but can remember nothing about it; nor did rereading it refresh my memory. Just gone. It seems like it was part of a whole series of books that kids my age were reading at that time; "The Owl Service", "The Silver Sword", "Red Shift", "Stig of the Dump", the Gerald Durrell books, and so on. I'm tempted to say the culture was more "literary" then, but really, every new generation of readers has their own touchstone books. I DO remember "The Silver Sword" gave me my first understanding of the hell that Europe had experienced in WW2, and that never left me. Perhaps the only difference was that these books were more grounded in reality than books now; "The Owl Service", for example, although it had fantasy elements, was much more concerned with the tensions coming from social class and identity and the encroachment of the past on the present. Were they "better"? I think they assumed a slightly more sophisticated audience of children, able to parse a more literary style, and "Jack Holborn" has passages in it that demand more attention than a similar book would now, but ultimately, great books are being written all the time. One difference; There were less of them in 1964, more editors and gatekeepers and powerful critics, so the good stuff was easier to find.
August 27, 2014
Oh I loved it! The story of the twin captains, one good and one very evil, and poor Jack trapped to loyalty to the evil twin.
December 30, 2025
Leon Garfield was my first "favourite" author. I read all his adventure stories, in lovely Puffin club editions.
Jack Holborn is a ripping yarn, full of intrigue and plot twists. Apparently it was originally written as an adult book, and Garfield's publishers advised him to turn it into a children's book, setting the course of his writing for many years.
I wonder what the adult version was like - i know there was plenty here that i didn't follow, aged 7 or 8. I think his later books were perhaps better worked out, "Smith" made a great BBC TV series .
The writing is brilliant, it sparkles and leaps along. Don't settle in to the pirate adventure. Within a few chapters you'll be lost in the jungles and slave markets of Africa.
Jack Holborn is a ripping yarn, full of intrigue and plot twists. Apparently it was originally written as an adult book, and Garfield's publishers advised him to turn it into a children's book, setting the course of his writing for many years.
I wonder what the adult version was like - i know there was plenty here that i didn't follow, aged 7 or 8. I think his later books were perhaps better worked out, "Smith" made a great BBC TV series .
The writing is brilliant, it sparkles and leaps along. Don't settle in to the pirate adventure. Within a few chapters you'll be lost in the jungles and slave markets of Africa.
January 18, 2024
Anton Maitland black and white illustrations 250 pages
A parish fondling boy, apprenticed to a cobbler, young Jack runs away to sea. A stow-away he is made cook’s helper when discovered. Typical storm-tossed seas, pirates, lost in an African jungle, treasure chest, the slave trade, and mysterious twins. Jack finally finds out who his mother is – not some noble lady of his imagination but a lowly housekeeper. By then Jack himself is rich!
A parish fondling boy, apprenticed to a cobbler, young Jack runs away to sea. A stow-away he is made cook’s helper when discovered. Typical storm-tossed seas, pirates, lost in an African jungle, treasure chest, the slave trade, and mysterious twins. Jack finally finds out who his mother is – not some noble lady of his imagination but a lowly housekeeper. By then Jack himself is rich!
August 21, 2019
A little uneven in the style, plus the expected racism of a mid-century age-of-sail adventure novel. But a decent read.
April 6, 2020
Great book great feel for history great story.
Read
August 17, 20231971 dan's copy
January 24, 2026
Enjoyable book that reminded me of Treasure Island with its pirates , treasure and characters.
May 2, 2018
Another nostalgic re-read of a past favourite, a 'children's' historical novel from 1964 - though I read it in the early 70s - by the celebrated storyteller Leon Garfield (illustrations by Antony Maitland), which has been , sadly, flushed away by an unstoppable wave of literary wizards, witches, zombies & talking animals - all the stuff I rigorously & deliberately avoided reading when I was in short trousers!! - (up to eleven...I only wore long trousers when I went to 'big' school!).
I think many boisterous & restlessly awkward boys in the present day maelstrom of Rowlingesque fantasy garbage might enjoy this blood-stirring 18th.c.set tale of the wild sea & cursed treasure & human treachery & deep intrigue - Pirates of the Caribbean?! - with a tear-jerking, sentimental ending for the eponymous hero, an apparent orphan who lands very firmly on his feet after a series of frightening experiences...and not a dragon anywhere! I loved it second time around too!
I think many boisterous & restlessly awkward boys in the present day maelstrom of Rowlingesque fantasy garbage might enjoy this blood-stirring 18th.c.set tale of the wild sea & cursed treasure & human treachery & deep intrigue - Pirates of the Caribbean?! - with a tear-jerking, sentimental ending for the eponymous hero, an apparent orphan who lands very firmly on his feet after a series of frightening experiences...and not a dragon anywhere! I loved it second time around too!
August 18, 2015
Very rare that I like a book purely because of the writing. The characters are not particularly fascinating stock ones and the plot is a facile thing relying on good/evil twins but the writing is clear, clean and elegant. There are often good jokes smuggled inside the text and what isn't really finely honed, is quick paced. I'd like to read some other Leon Garfield books and see the excellent style yoked to a better story.
April 5, 2025
This book is over written. There's an overuse of ellipsis and colons in particular, which doesn't make for a smooth read.
This is Garfield's first book and he did smooth out his writing style in later ones.
The book does not really engage the reader.
This is really a book for adults. I doubt whether many of today's kids would persevere with it much beyond the first two chapters.
This is Garfield's first book and he did smooth out his writing style in later ones.
The book does not really engage the reader.
This is really a book for adults. I doubt whether many of today's kids would persevere with it much beyond the first two chapters.
August 4, 2010
One of my favorite books ever!!
May 4, 2011
I don't remember the details.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews