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Jeffery Farnol (10 February 1878 – 9 August 1952) was a British writer known for writing more than 40 romance novels, often set in the Georgian Era or English Regency period. He, with Georgette Heyer, largely initiated the Regency romantic genre.

John Jeffery Farnol was born in Aston, Birmingham, England, the son of Kate Jeffery and Henry John Farnol, a factory-employed brass-founder. He was brought up in London and Kent, and attended the Westminster School of Art after he had lost his job in a Birmingham metal-working firm.

In 1900 he married Blanche Wilhelmina Victoria Hawley (1883–1955), the 16-year-old daughter of the noted New York scenic artist H. Hughson Hawley. They moved to the United States, where he found work as a scene painter, and the marriage produced a daughter, Gillian Hawley.

Farnol published his first romance novel, My Lady Caprice, in 1907. This moderate success was followed by The Broad Highway, a publishing sensation which became the best-selling book of 1911 in the world. For over 40 years, his swashbuckling historical romances were ranked among the best-selling fiction of the world, winning the admiration of millions of readers.

He returned to England around 1910, and settled in Eastbourne, Sussex. In 1938, he divorced Blanche and married Phyllis Mary Clarke on 20 May, and adopted her daughter, Charmian Jane. Farnol died on 9 August 1952 at age 74 in Eastbourne after a long struggle with cancer. His last book was completed by his second wife Phyllis.