Author talk:William Joseph Cosens Lancaster

Several booksellers on Abebooks give the date of the first edition of The Log of the Privateersman as 1986 for the US edition (Scribner) and 1897 for the UK edition (Blackie).

Similarly, the date for the first edition of the Cruise of the Esmerelda is given as 1884 by several booksellers on Abebooks

The reasons for believing that Leisure Lyrics is misattributed are as follows

Although numerous sources attribute this work to William Joseph Cousens Lancaster (the real name for Harry Collingwood), there are good reasons to believe that the author was in fact Sir William John Lancaster, the Secretary of the Prudential Insurance Company Limited.

In the foreword, WJL says:

'In the intervals of a busy life it has often been my amusement to contribute to the press articles, verses and criticisms upon passing events. These, happily for me, have for the most part passed into oblivion, but the following verses, crystallized in the pages of my old office journal, the "Ibis Magazine," have been extracted by my daughter, and, at the wish of my children, have been separately printed.'

W.J.L., Putney Hill, 1902

First, the author of the Leisure Lyrics uses the initials WJL and not WJCL.

Second WJCL is only recorded as having one child, a son Percival.

Third, the Ibis Magazine was the office journal of the Prudential Assurance Company, of which WJL was the Company Secretary. Leisure Lyrics make several references to the Ibis. It is highly unlikely that WJCL, a hydrological engineer who worked all over the world, (possibly for Sir John Jackson Limited - where his son Percival worked), was employed long term by Prudential rather than an engineering consultancy.

Fourth, Brimstones boosellers of Lewes, record the title - an original 1902 edition - as being authored by William John Lancaster (and not Harry Collingwood as for the reprinted edition).

Fifth, WJL lived and died in Putney - and the author of Leisure Lyrics gives his address as Putney Hill, whereas WJCL lived, at the time of his death, in Hoole, near Chester.