Life
1876-1963 [pseud. “James Harpole” [occas. err. “Hartpole”]
- from Hartley and Wimpole Sts.]; born Kingsgate St., Coleraine, Co. Derry;
ed. Coleraine Acad. Inst., and TCD; was lent books by Edward Dowden (TCD);
winner of New Shakespeare Society Prize; counselled by Dowden to pursue
medicine on Charles Lamb’s advice (‘Literature is a bad crutch but a good
walking-stick’); intern at Dr. Stevens’ Hospital, witnessing typhoid
epidemic; first practised in Co. Clare; moved to London; R.M.O at Lock
Hospital and Rescue Home, 1908; published on syphilis in Dublin Journal
of Medicine; held surgery on Caledonian Rd.; travelled to East (‘We
were all mad on Kipling’), acting as ship’s doctor on sea-voyage on discovering
that he had contracted a pathogen in hospital; The Surgeon’s Log:
Being Impressions of the Far East (1911), drafted as “The
Cruise of the Cytemnestra”, accepted for publication by Arthur Waugh
at Chapman & Hall, and ran to 31 edns.; Waugh then published The
Night Nurse (1913), a novel of student-doctor Fitzgerald and the nurse
he loves, Nora Townsend, set in Dr. Steevens’s Hospital, written some
years earlier and later filmed by Brian Desmond Hurst in 1935 as
Nora O’Neale [var. Irish Hearts]; took ‘a holiday at sea’
as ship’s doctor on board The Bayano (Elder & Fyffe’s); acted
as major in Serbian Army Medical Corp, 1914, diagnosing typhus among troops,
and later saw service in the Middle East, witnessing aftermath of defeat
at Gaza; Knight of St. John; Consulting Surgeon at Princess Beatrice Hospital,
London; also issued My Balkan Log (1921) and Lettsom (1933),
biography of John Coakley Lettsom, physician (1744-1815); issued Surgeon’s
Journey (1957), autobiography; held rank of Lieut.-Col.; CBE and DSO;
received DLitt. from TCD, 1946, on same day as George Birmingham; President
of Irish Medical Graduates Assoc. and Fellow Royal Society of Medicine;
awarded Arnott Medal of the Association, 1949. IF DIW
IBL DUB OCIL
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Works
Fiction, The Night Nurse (Chapman
& Hall 1913) [5th edn.], 318pp.
Autobiography & Miscellaneous, Surgeon’s Log: Being Impression of the Far East (London: Chapman and Hall 1911; 31 edns. to 1957), 337pp., 23 pls., 8o. [infra]; My Balkan Log (Chapman & Hall: London 1921), vii, 311pp., 21 pls., 8o.; with W. E. Reynolds, trans. & ed., The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator [from “Os Filhos de D. João I”] (London: Chapman & Hall 1914), ix. 324pp., 12ills. 8o.; Lettsom: His Life, Times, Friends and Descendants (London: William Heinemann 1933), xx. 498pp., 4o., ills. and ports.; Leaves from a Surgeon’s Case-Book (1938); The White Coated Army (1938); Behind the Mask (1940); A Surgeon’s Heritage (1953), and sundry specialist medical works; Surgeon's Journey: The Autobiography of J. J. Abraham (London: Heinemann 1957), viii, 441pp, 8o., 22 pls. with ports. of self and others incl. Alexander Fleming]
Surgeon’s Log:
Being Impression of the Far East [1st edn.] (London: Chapman and Hall
1911; 31 edns. to 1957), 337pp., 23 pls., 8o.
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- Kevin Rockett [et al.], eds., Cinema & Ireland (1988), p.59 [on Irish Hearts, dir. Brian Desmond Hurst]
- Irish Book Lover, Vols. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
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Kevin Rockett, et al., eds., Cinema & Ireland (1988). p.59, cites J. Johnston Abraham, author of the novel Night Nurse filmed as Irish Hearts in 1934, dir. Irish-born film-maker Brian Desmond Hurst; in it a young doctor whose love for two women is bound up with his struggle against an outbreak of typhus.
British Library holds [1] Lectures on Gonorrhoea in Women and Children, etc.. x. 142 pp. William Heinemann: London, 1924. 8o. [2] Lettsom: his life, times, friends and descendants. [With illustrations, including portraits.]. xx. 498pp. William Heinemann: London, 1933. 4o. [3] My Balkan Log, etc.. vii. 311pp. pl. xvi. Chapman & Hall: London, 1921. 8o. [4] Ninety-nine Wimpole Street. [Article on medical life.]. 193pp. Chapman & Hall: London, 1937. 8o. [5] Surgeon's Journey. The autobiography of J. J. Abraham. [With plates, including portraits.]. viii. 441 pp. Heinemann: London, 1957. 8o. [6] The Night Nurse.. 128pp. George Newnes: London, [1932.] 8o. [7] The Surgeon's Log. (Seventh edition.) [With plates.]. xii. 244pp. pl. 8. Heinemann: London, [1960.] 8o. [8] The Surgeon's Log. Being impressions of the Far East ... With forty-four illustrations. Third edition. (Fourteenth edition.) [A reissue.] The Surgeon's Log, etc.. xii. 337pp. Chapman & Hall: London, 1911. 8o.. London, 1911.. xv. 286pp. Chapman & Hall: London, 1926. 8o.. Chapman & Hall: London, 1931. 8o. [9] The Surgeon's Log, etc.. 288pp. Bodley Head: London, 1936. 8o. [10] The Surgeon's Log, etc. (Pocket edition.). xi. 294pp. Chapman & Hall: London, 1933. 8o. [11] The Surgeon's Log, etc. (Twentieth edition.). 294pp. Chapman & Hall: London, 1935. 8o. [12] Fracastor. Syphilis or the French Disease. A poem in Latin hexameters ... with a translation, notes, and appendix by Heneage Wynne-Finch ... and an introduction by James Johnston Abraham [with plates, including portraits, and a bibliography]. vii. 253pp. William Heinemann: London, 1935. 8o. [13] Heinemann Modern Dictionary for Nurses. Compiled by L. T. Morton ... and J. J. Abraham.. viii. 309pp. William Heinemann Medical Books: London, 1961. 16o. [14] The Night Nurse. [A novel.] By the author of "The Surgeon's Log" [J. J. Abraham]. vi. 310pp. Chapman & Hall: London, 1913. 8o. [15] The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator ... Translated [from "Os Filhos de D. João I."], with additions and annotations by J. J. Abraham and W. E. Reynolds. With twelve illustrations.. ix. 324pp. Chapman & Hall: London, 1914. 8o. [16] The Theory and Practice of the Steinach Operation. With ... an introduction to the English edition by J. Johnston Abraham .. xiv. 150pp. W. Heinemann: London, 1924. 8o. [17] Cottage Hospitals. By Major F. M. Du-Plat-Taylor ... John Coleridge ... J. Johnston Abraham. [With plates.]. 104pp. Ernest Benn: London, 1930. 4o. [18] A Text-Book of Venereal Diseases. [Edited by James Johnston Abraham.]. 439pp. William Heinemann Medical Books: London, 1950. 8o. ALSO, British Printed Catalogue (pre-1957). As pseud "James Hartpole": The Golden Age of Francis the Navigator, trans. from Oliviera Martins (1914); Cottage Hospitals (1930), with S. M. D-Plat-Taylor [sic]; works on venereal disease include. Lectures on Gonorrhoea in Women and Children (London: Heinemann 1924); and Steinach operation; Lettsom [etc.], ill. and pts., x, 124pp.; Night Nurse (London: George Newnes 1913; 1932); Ninety-nine Wimpole Street [articles on medical life] (London: Chapman & Hall 1937), 193pp. Surgeon's Log, being impressions of the Far East ... with forty ills (London: Chapman & Hall 1911), xii, 337pp.; Do., 14th ed., xv, 286pp. (London: Chapman & Hall 1926); pocket ed., xi, 294pp 1933; 20th ed., 1935; Penguin Books, No.66 (London: Bodley Head 1936; rep. 1931)
Cathach Books (Winter 1996-97) lists Surgeon's Log: The Autobiography of J. Johnston Abraham (London: Heinemann 1957), 30 pls.
Belfast Central Public Library
holds Night Nurse (1926), and The Surgeon's Log (1912).
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‘Abraham Johnson’ - a possible variant on this author’s name -
is bestowed to one of the characters in W. B. Yeats’s play The Words Upon
the Window-Pane. The character in question complains of travelling from
Belfast at considerable expense and being prevented from communicating
with the great evangelist Moody by the dominant spirit of the séance.
(R. K. Alspach, ed., Variorum Edn. of the Plays of W. B. Yeats,
Macmillan 1966, p.942.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)