David Wheldon

David Wheldon was born in 1950 in the mining village of Moira, Leicestershire. He went to the Quaker school at Sidcot, Somerset, and graduated in medicine from Bristol University. He was the author of four novels, a short story collection, and several collections of poetry. He was married to the artist Sarah Longlands. He died unexpectedly at his Bedford home in January 2021 at the age of seventy.{{Cite web |title=Award-winning novelist David Wheldon dies, aged 70 |url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/award-winning-novelist-david-wheldon-dies-aged-70-1233471 |access-date=2022-06-21 |website=The Bookseller |language=En}}

Wheldon's first novel The Viaduct won the Triple First Award in 1983. The judges were Graham Greene and William Trevor. It was a runner-up in The Whitbread Award. It was republished in the USA and widely reviewed.

His first three novels are often described as allegorical and Kafkaesque.{{Cite journal |last=Lockwood |first=David |date=March 2021 |title=Signs of Kafka in David Wheldon's Novels |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350071102_Signs_of_Kafka_in_David_Wheldon%27s_Novels |journal=ResearchGate |doi=10.13140/RG.2.2.26399.84645}}{{Cite news |last=Januszczak |first=Waldemar |date=1984-04-03 |title=Meridian, David Wheldon's Course of Instruction |work=BBC Sounds |publisher=BBC Sounds |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p03m0p39}}{{Cite news |last=Jordan |first=Elaine |date=1983-04-21 |title=Travelling |language=en |volume=05 |work=London Review of Books |issue=7 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v05/n07/elaine-jordan/travelling |access-date=2022-06-29 |issn=0260-9592}} Wheldon has written that he first read Kafka after completing The Viaduct and an early version of A Vocation.{{Cite web |title=Kafka and Dickens: the unconscious made public |url=https://www.davidwheldon.co.uk/firstencounter.html#anchor15311 |access-date=2022-06-21 |website=www.davidwheldon.co.uk}}

He published several volumes of poetry with The Berkeleyan Eye,{{Cite web |date=2022-06-29 |title=David Wheldon Books |url=https://www.book-info.com/author/David_Wheldon.htm }} a publishing house set up with his wife the artist Sarah Longlands. The books are illustrated with her drawings, with poems individually illustrated in the volumes Uncompliant Stranger and Days and Orders.{{Cite web |last=Longlands |first=absolutearts com, Sarah |title=Sarah Longlands, Footsteps In The Snow |url=https://www.absolutearts.com/drawing/ink/sarah-longlands-footsteps-in-the-snow-1520441783.html |access-date=2022-06-21 |website=absolutearts.com / wwar.com |language=en}}

After a couple of decades with no published fiction, from 2017 his short fiction began to appear in The Woven Tale Press, Confingo, and Nightjar Press.{{Cite journal |last=O'Reilly |first=Aiden |date=April 2017 |title=RE:fresh David Wheldon |url=https://stingingfly.org/2017/06/01/david-wheldon/ |journal=The Stinging Fly |volume=2 |issue=36 |isbn=9781906539627}} His short story collection The Guiltless Bystander was published by Confingo Publishing in July 2022.{{Cite web |title=Confingo Publishing |url=https://www.confingopublishing.uk |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220621111538/https://www.confingopublishing.uk/ |archive-date=2022-06-21 |access-date=2022-06-21 |website=CŌNFINGŌ PUBLISHING}}

His personal website contains several uncollected short stories, essays, and poems.{{Cite web |last=Wheldon |first=David |date=2022-06-21 |title=David Wheldon poet, novelist, pathologist |url=https://www.davidwheldon.co.uk |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220621112828/https://www.davidwheldon.co.uk/ |archive-date=2022-06-21 |access-date=2022-06-21 |website=}}

His first two novels The Viaduct and The Course of Instruction were reissued by Valancourt in November 2024.{{Cite web |title=The Viaduct (1983) |url=https://www.valancourtbooks.com/the-viaduct-1983.html |access-date=2025-01-18 |website=Valancourt Books |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=The Course of Instruction (1984) |url=https://www.valancourtbooks.com/the-course-of-instruction-1984.html |access-date=2025-01-18 |website=Valancourt Books |language=en}}

At Bristol he had made a special study of the disease Multiple Sclerosis. In 2002 his wife, the artist Sarah Longlands, suddenly had difficulty walking and was diagnosed with MS. Wheldon published research on an antibiotic treatment of the disease,{{Cite journal |last1=Wheldon |first1=David B. |last2=Stratton |first2=Charles W. |date=2006-11-01 |title=Multiple sclerosis: an infectious syndrome involving Chlamydophila pneumoniae. |journal=Trends in Microbiology |volume=14 |issue=11 |pages=474–479 |doi=10.1016/j.tim.2006.09.002|pmid=16996738 }}{{Cite journal |last1=Wheldon |first1=David B. |last2=Stratton |first2=Charles W. |date=2007-10-01 |title=Antimicrobial treatment of multiple sclerosis |journal=Infection |volume=35 |issue=5 |pages=383–385 |doi=10.1007/s15010-007-7036-5|pmid=17882356 |s2cid=39176800 }} and claims to have successfully treated his wife.{{Cite journal |date=2015-11-01 |title=Seeking a cure for Multiple Sclerosis |url=https://sidcotians.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/sidcot-friends-magazine-autumn-2015.pdf |journal=Sidcotian Friends |issue=Autumn,Winter 2015 |pages=12,13}} He began to treat others with what became known as "The Wheldon Protocol".{{Cite journal |last1=Ntatsaki |first1=Eleana |last2=Watts |first2=Richard A. |date=2010-02-04 |title=Management of polymyalgia rheumatica |url=https://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c620 |journal=BMJ |language=en |volume=340 |pages=c620 |doi=10.1136/bmj.c620 |issn=0959-8138 |pmid=20133367|s2cid=9343105 |url-access=subscription }}{{Cite web |title=Wheldon Protocol {{!}} Cpnhelp.org |url=http://cpnhelp.org/wheldon |access-date=2022-06-29 |website=cpnhelp.org}}

• The Viaduct (1983)
• The Course of Instruction (1984)
• A Vocation (1986)
• At The Quay (1990)

• The Uncompliant Stranger (1997)
• Onesimus (1997)

• Night Altitude (1999)
• Days and Orders (1998)
• Language in a Narrow Place (1998)
• Changes, Days, Lives (2000)
• A Lens to the Sun (2000)

• The Guiltless Bystander (2022)

{{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wheldon, David}}

Category:1950 births

Category:2021 deaths

Category:English male writers

Category:People from Leicestershire