FARJEON, J(oseph) Jefferson

(1883-1955)

   UK writer, prolific (often as Anthony Swift) in the detective genre and as a playwright. The RURITANIAN Mountain Mystery (1935) depicts the small country of Weldheim, which loses itself to history after WWI, becoming a kind of LOST WORLD. Death of a World (1948) depicts the arrival of aliens on a dead Earth and their reading of the diary (which makes up the bulk of the text) kept by a last survivor of the nuclear DISASTER that ended all life (END OF THE WORLD).

   JC

   Other works: The Invisible Companion and Other Stories (coll 1946 chap), fantasies.