Negley Farson (1890 - 1960)

RA Collection: People and Organisations

American author and adventurer. A renowned fisherman, Farson wrote one of the classics of fishing literature, Going Fishing (1942). The story of his life is told in his two volumes of autobiography The Way Of a Transgressor (1936) and A Mirror for Narcissus (1957).

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, Farson was raised by his eccentric grandfather, the Civil War General James Negley (1826-1901). He was educated at Andover and read civil engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He was expelled from this institution and emigrated to England. He went into journalism and travelled to Russia, being present in Petrograd the day the Bolshevik Revolution broke out. Farson went on to become one of the most renowned foreign correspondents of his day. He died on 13 December 1960 in London, England.