author
J. A. (James Arthur) Lees
b. 1852
Best known as the co-author of lively Victorian travel books, this English barrister turned his outdoor journeys into readable, often humorous adventure narratives. His books take readers from Norway’s rivers and mountains to late-19th-century British Columbia.
1 Audiobook
Three in Norway, by Two of Them
by J. A. (James Arthur) Lees, Walter J. Clutterbuck
About the author
Born in 1852, James Arthur Lees was an English barrister who also wrote travel books drawn from his own expeditions. A legal reference source records that he studied at University College, Oxford, entered the Inner Temple in 1873, and was called to the bar in 1881.
Lees is most closely linked with the travel classic Three in Norway, by Two of Them, written with Walter J. Clutterbuck and first published in 1882. He later collaborated with Clutterbuck again on B.C. 1887: A Ramble in British Columbia, an illustrated account of their travels in western Canada.
The surviving record is slimmer than for many better-known Victorian writers, but the outline is clear: he was a well-educated lawyer with a taste for long journeys, field sports, and vivid travel writing. Archival and catalog records identify him as living from 1852 to 1931.