English novelist, playwright and politician, born in Camberwell on the 7th of May 1865 and educated at Dulwich College and Trinity College, Oxford. Whilst at Oxford he played Heracles in a production by the O.U.D.S. of the Alcestis of Euripides, and when he left the university he joined a theatrical company and toured for a time in the provinces. He soon, however, abandoned acting for literature. His first novel, A Romance of Wastdale, was published in 1895. He followed it by the successful Courtship of Morrice Buckler (also dramatized) in 1896 and Miranda of the Balcony (dramatized in New York) in 1899. Amongst later novels The Four Feathers (1902); The Broken Road (1907); Running Water (1907) and The Turnstile (1912) are the most notable. At the Villa Rose (1910), an experiment in the detective story, was successfully dramatized and presented at the Strand theatre, London, in July 1920. Besides the dramatization of his novels, he wrote as original plays Colonel Smith (1909), The Witness for the Defence (1911) and Open Windows (1913). He sat as Liberal member for Coventry in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1910. During the World War he held a commission in the Manchester regiment and later was on the general staff of the R.M.L.I. He also went on missions to Spain and to Mexico for the Intelligence Dept. of the Admiralty and utilized some of his experiences in a novel The Summons (1920).
