Author: Stevenson, John Hall-
Biography:
STEVENSON, John Hall- (1718-85: ODNB)
pseudonym Lady ------
His name at his birth was John Hall; he added Stevenson after his marriage on 6 Feb. 1740 to Anne Stevenson, an heiress whose father later lost his money. He was probably born at Skelton Castle, Yorkshire; his parents were Joseph Hall, a Durham lawyer, and Catherine Trotter whose brother owned Skelton Castle. In 1735 he enrolled at Jesus College, Cambridge, and was admitted to the Inner Temple in the same year. At Jesus he befriended Laurence Sterne who performed the wedding ceremony when Hall married Anne Stevenson. He did not take a degree. He acquired Skelton Castle, either through inheritance from his mother or because Joseph Hall purchased it from Lawson Trotter, and developed it as “Crazy Castle.” He built up a large library and gathered about him an eclectic group who were known as the “Demoniacs.” His writings are imitative and, in particular, he exploited Sterne’s success. His best-known work, Crazy Tales (1762), published as by “A.S.” or Anthony Shandy, is a collection of ribald stories each told in the person of fictionalised members of Stevenson’s circle. He died on 25 Mar. 1785 and was buried in All Saints Churchyard in Skelton. He was survived by his wife and at least one of their two sons. He is best remembered now as “Eugenius” in Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. (ODNB 23 Nov. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 23 Nov. 2021; ACAD 23 Nov. 2021)