James Kenward

James Macara Kenward (1908–1994), was an English writer and illustrator, best known for his accounts of suburban and prep school life. Biography Kenward was born in South London, the son of the Lloyd's insurance broker who invented rain insurance, The Jupiter Pluvius policy. Kenward received his prep school education at Ripple Vale School near Deal in Kent until entering Brighton College in 1919. On leaving Brighton he spent three years at Lloyd's in his father's footsteps before taking up writing full-time, at the age of twenty. His first novel for adults, John and David, a story of feuding brothers, was published by Peter Davies in 1931. This was followed by the fantasy Summervale in 1935, published by Constable and Co. and recounting the metamorphosis of an unassuming suburban insurance broker into a dog. The Manewood Line, a fictional account of the rise, decline and revival of Selsey's branch line and Kenward's last novel for adults (described as "A Romance" on the fly-leaves of later books), was published by Stanley Paul in 1937. Kenward's next book, The Roof-Tree, can be classed loosely as a work on architecture and was first published in 1938: it was reissued in The Oxford Bookshelf series in 1941. This was the first book that Kenward illustrated himself, apart from a few maps drawn for The Manewood Line. At the age of 40, Kenward trained at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in order to illustrate his own books. He was a skilled landscape draughtsman, making particularly fine drawings of trees, and many watercolour paintings.