author
Florence Coombe
A writer of lively school stories and children's adventures, she also spent years in the South Pacific and wrote about missionary life in the New Hebrides. Her work blends brisk storytelling with a strong sense of place and purpose.
1 Audiobook
Jack of Both Sides: The Story of a School War
by Florence Coombe
About the author
Florence Edith Coombe was a British author born in Beckenham in 1870 or 1871. She grew up in a clerical family, lived for part of her early life in Sheffield and later in Worthing, and became known for books for young readers, including school stories such as Jack of Both Sides and other adventure tales.
She is also remembered for her connection to the New Hebrides, where she worked as a missionary teacher. That experience shaped another side of her writing, giving it a practical, observant tone and linking her fiction and nonfiction to everyday life in the South Pacific.
Available sources suggest she died in 1953. Details of her life are not especially well documented online, but the broad outline is clear: she was a writer for children and young people whose books joined action, moral purpose, and the world she knew firsthand.