Richard Gordon (English author)

For other people of the same name, see Richard Gordon (disambiguation).

Richard Gordon
Born	Gordon Stanley Ostlere 15 September 1921(1921-09-15)
Nationality	English
Known for	"Doctor" novel series

Richard Gordon is the pen name used by Gordon Ostlere (born Gordon Stanley Ostlere on 15 September 1921), an English surgeon and anaesthetist. As Richard Gordon, Ostlere has written numerous novels, screenplays for film and television and accounts of popular history, mostly dealing with the practice of medicine. He is most famous for a long series of comic novels on a medical theme starting with Doctor in the House, and the subsequent film, television, radio and stage adaptations. His The Alarming History of Medicine was published in 1993, and he followed this with The Alarming History of Sex.

Gordon worked as anaesthetist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (where he was a medical student) and later as a ship's surgeon and as assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. He has published several technical books under his own name including Anaesthetics for Medical Students (1949); later published as Ostlere and Bryce-Smith's Anaesthetics for Medical Students in 1989, Anaesthetics and the Patient (1949) and Trichlorethylene Anaesthesia (1953)[1].

In 1952, he left medical practice and took up writing full time. He has an uncredited role as an anaesthetist in the movie Doctor in the House.

The early Doctor novels, set in the fictitious St Swithin's, a teaching hospital in London, were initially witty and apparently autobiographical; later books included more sexual innuendo and farce. The novels were very successful in Britain in Penguin paperback during the 1960s and 1970s. Richard Gordon also contributed to Punch magazine and has published books on medicine, gardening, fishing and cricket.

The film adaptation of Doctor in the House was released in 1954, two years after the book, while Doctor at Sea came out the following year, with Brigitte Bardot. Dirk Bogarde starred as Dr. Simon Sparrow in both. The later spin-off TV series were written by well-known British comedy writers. In 1974 he walked off the set of This is Your Life when Eamonn Andrews appeared with the red book. He later changed his mind and the show was transmitted a week later.

His wife is also a doctor by profession and they have 4 children. He lives in London.

Partial bibliography

• Doctor in the House. London: Joseph. 1952.
• Doctor at Sea. London: Joseph. 1953.
• Doctor at Large. London: Joseph. 1955.
• Doctor in Love. London. Joseph. 1957
• Doctor and Son. London: Joseph. 1959.
• Doctor in Clover. London: Joseph. 1960.
• Doctor on Toast. London: Joseph. 1961.
• Doctor in the Swim. London. Joseph. 1962.
• The Summer of Sir Lancelot. Heinemann. 1965.
• Love and Sir Lancelot. Heinemann. 1965.
• Doctor on the Boil. Heinemann. 1970.
• Doctor on the Brain. Heinemann. 1972.
• Doctor in the Nude. Heinemann. 1973.
• Doctor on the Job. Heinemann. 1976.
• Doctor in the Nest. Heinemann. 1979.
• Doctor's Daughters. Heinemann. 1981.
• Doctor on the Ball. Hutchinson. 1985.
• Doctor in the Soup. Century. 1986.
• The last of Sir Lancelot. Hale. 1999.

• The Captain's table. London: Joseph. 1954.
• Nuts in May. Heinemann. 1964.

• The facemaker. Heinemann. 1967.
• Surgeon at arms. Heinemann. 1968.
• The facts of life. Heinemann. 1969
• The medical witness. Heinemann. 1971
• The Sleep of Life. Heinemann. 1975.
• The invisible victory. Heinemann. 1977.
• The Private Life of Florence Nightingale. Heinemann. 1978.
• The private life of Jack the Ripper. Heinemann. 1980.
• The Private Life of Doctor Crippen. Heinemann, 1981.

• Dr. Gordon's Casebook (diary)
• The Alarming History of Medicine : Amusing Anecdotes from Hippocrates to Heart Transplants
• An Alarming History of Famous and Difficult Patients: Amusing Medical Anecdotes from Typhoid Mary to FDR
• Great Medical Mysteries
• Great Medical Discoveries

• The Bulldon and the Bear. [play]. 1984.

• Great Medical Disasters.. London: House of Stratus.. 2001. ISBN 1-842-32519-1.  First published 1983 by Hutchinson & Co., London. ISBN 0-09-152230-7

• The Literary Companion to Medicine (editor), 1996

References

• Richard Gordon at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard Gordon at World Book online encyclopedia

External links

• BBC Guide to Comedy

Persondata
Name	Gordon, Richard
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	15 September 1921
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death