18 Facts About Anthony Lejeune

Edward Anthony Thompson, known as Anthony Lejeune, was an English writer, editor, and broadcaster.

Anthony Lejeune was known for his weekly radio talk London Letter that was broadcast in South Africa for nearly 30 years and for his crime novels and writing about the history of London's gentleman's clubs.

Anthony Lejeune produced a number of political books written from a conservative point of view.

Anthony Lejeune was described by The Times as "always out of period, a misfit in the modern world for whom the term 'young fogey' might have been invented".

Anthony Lejeune was born in Hendon on 7 August 1928 to the journalist and editor Edward Roffe Thompson, and Caroline Alice Lejeune, a film reviewer for The Observer.

Anthony Lejeune graduated with a first class degree in 1951.

Anthony Lejeune took his mother's surname but never legally changed his name.

Anthony Lejeune subsequently became the editor but left after the ownership of the magazine changed.

Anthony Lejeune then worked at the Daily Express, and through Ian Fleming, got a job as the crime correspondent for The Sunday Times.

Anthony Lejeune wrote a number of detective novels, six up to 1965 and three in the 1980s, and from 1953 reviewed detective stories for the Catholic weekly newspaper The Tablet, although he was not Catholic himself.

Anthony Lejeune recorded a weekly radio talk titled London Letter for the South African Broadcasting Company for nearly 30 years.

Anthony Lejeune wrote a weekly column for The Daily Telegraph colour magazine in the 1970s and 1980s and was the London correspondent for New York's conservative National Review for over 40 years.

Anthony Lejeune produced a number of political books which were written from a conservative point of view.

Anthony Lejeune's best-remembered non-fiction is The Gentlemen's Clubs of London and White's: The First Three Hundred Years which drew on his knowledge of the London gentleman's club scene.

Anthony Lejeune was a member of five such clubs which he described as "a peculiarly English institution".

Anthony Lejeune had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the novels of Rider Haggard.

Anthony Lejeune was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2010 and resigned from his five clubs.

Anthony Lejeune died from complications of the disease on 3 March 2018 and received obituaries in The Times and The Daily Telegraph.