author
Sir Charles L. (Charles Lawrence) Young
1839–1887
A Victorian playwright, barrister, and baronet whose best-known stage work, Jim the Penman, helped carry a sensational tale of forgery and scandal to a wide audience. He also wrote shorter dramatic pieces and moved in the overlapping worlds of law, society, and the theatre.
1 Audiobook
A Stable for Nightmares; or, Weird Tales
by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Sir Charles L. (Charles Lawrence) Young
About the author
Born in 1839, Sir Charles Lawrence Young was an English barrister and the 7th Baronet of North Dean. He is remembered chiefly as a playwright, and reference sources describe him as both a dramatist and an amateur actor as well as a man of law.
His best-known work is Jim the Penman, a Victorian drama built around crime and forgery that remained notable enough to be adapted for the screen after his death. Catalog and library records also show him publishing other plays, including Infatuation and shorter comic pieces, suggesting a steady involvement in popular theatre rather than a single isolated success.
Young died in 1887. Although he is not among the most widely read Victorian writers today, his work still surfaces through library collections, theatre histories, and public-domain archives, where he appears as one of those 19th-century figures who bridged literary ambition, professional life, and social rank.