previous            A–Z            next        John Hookham Frere Pseudonym:        William and Robert Whistlecraft William and Robert Whistlecraft (1769–1846) were not father-and-son, nor were they brothers; they were one man – John Hookham Frere, the early 19th-century English diplomat and author. He used the name for his humorous poem ‘The Monkey and the Giant’ (1817–1818), a mock-romantic Arthurian work – to be precise, the first tour cantos of it – which came to provide a model for the much better known poem ‘Don Juan’ by Lord Byron, begun a year later (1819). Source: Room, A. (1981), ‘Names with a Different’, Naming Names, p.40 previous            A–Z            next