Wold Newton Resource Wiki
Wold Newton Resource Wiki
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Lady Joane Clayton is discussed by Philip José Farmer in Tarzan Alive. The daughter of the 4th Duke of Greystoke and Arabella Howard, she had an affair with Byron King-Noel, 12th Baron Wentworth, courtesy Viscount Ockham, the grandson of Lord Byron. This liaison produced a son, John Byron Wentworth, whom Farmer identifies as the original of Lord John Roxton from The Lost World and sequels by Arthur Conan Doyle. Joane subsequently married George Bredon Wimsey, 14th Duke of Denver (Farmer refers to him as the Duke of "Pomver", as Conan Doyle referred to Roxton's father as Duke of Pomfret) and amongst their children were:

Farmer's research tends to be original, and includes information not found in the Wimsey books by Dorothy L. Sayers. For example, the Earl of Whimsey's daughter is identified by Burroughs as Tarzan's cousin; the similarity of names drew Farmer to making the Whimsey and Wimsey families as one and the same. Sayers herself had stated that the 15th Duke's wife was one Mary Death. However, in his article A Look at the Wimsey Family, Wold Newton scholar Mark Brown points out that the "ancient and noble" Deaths could easily be the Clayton family, and that therefore Mary Death and Joane Clayton are one and the same person.

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