Somerset wrote “Liza of Lambeth” in 1897 when he was 23 years old and it was published in the same year that he qualified as a doctor. It was so successful that he never practiced as a doctor and he wrote his second novel in 1898.It has been said that he was lodging with Sydney Cockerell whilst he was a medical student at St Thomas Hospital and was strongly encouraged by Mrs Cockerell to start writing about the poverty in Lambeth.The British Medical Journal has it on record that he wrote “Liza of Lambeth” With a fountain pen by lamplight after his perambulations round the wards.Somerset said that his years as a medical student weren’t wasted because he saw the poverty in Lambeth which was considered to be a ghetto at that time.Sydney Blow, dramatist, used to frequently visit the Cockerels’s in his school days at that time, where he met Somerset many times writing his book.
Rima Jones ● 2058d