author
Crosbie Garstin
1887–1930
An adventurous Cornish writer who turned a life of travel, war service, and hard outdoor work into vivid fiction. He is best remembered for the Penhale trilogy, historical novels that helped bring 18th-century Cornwall to life for a wide audience.
2 Audiobooks
The Mud Larks
by Crosbie Garstin
The Owls' House
by Crosbie Garstin
About the author
Born in Newlyn, Cornwall, on 7 May 1887, Crosbie Garstin grew up in an artistic family as the eldest son of painter Norman Garstin. Before settling into literary success, he led a remarkably restless life, spending time in North America and elsewhere doing rugged jobs that later fed directly into his writing.
Garstin served in the First World War and wrote poetry as well as fiction, but his strongest reputation came from his novels. He became especially well known for the Penhale trilogy, a series of historical novels set in 18th-century Cornwall, and for other books shaped by his experiences abroad.
His life ended early and dramatically in 1930 after a boating accident in the Salcombe estuary. That mix of adventure, lived experience, and deep feeling for Cornwall gives his work an energy that still makes it easy to see why readers were drawn to him.