His pen-name was Sapper, his real name being Cyril McNeile, born 28 September, 1888. He was the son of a naval captain and entered the Royal Engineers, (whose nick-name is The Sappers) in 1907. He served through the First World War, retiring from the army with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1919. He began his writing carees with Sergeant …

Prosper Merimee wrote Carmen, the novel that attracted the attention of George Bizet, the composer. Merimee was born September 28, 1803, in Paris. He grew up a melancholy man of sensitive temper and a great writer of imaginative prose. He died September 23, 1870.

The American author Herman Melville. He was born August 1, 1819 in New York, the son of Allan Melville, a ne’ er-do-well importer of the most fashionable clothes and expensive materials. When in 1812 war broke out between Britain and the United States, the business failed. In 1832 Herman Melville’s father died, his mind unbalanced by the misfortunes of his …

Neol Langley, who was born in South Africa, December 25, 1911. The title of the book is The Land of Green Ginger. Like the original story of Aladdin as told in The Arabian Nights Entertainment, it concerns the adventures of a day amid wizardry and magicians. So far as writing is concerned, Noel Langley was a man of many parts. …

This was Jack London, the celebrated American author, who was born at San Francisco, January 12, 1876. His full name was John Griffith London (the surname of his stepfather). He was successively an oyster pirate, member of a fishing patrol and a seaman on a sailing vessel. He took part in the Klondike gold rush of 1897 and tramped through …

In his world famous book, James Fenimore Cooper names Chingachgook, the Mohican freind of Natty Bumppo, better known as Hawkeye the Hunter. The story takes place at the time of the Frech and Indian Wars in America. It begins with an English officer, Major Duncan Heyward, in company with Cora and Alice, the daughters of Colenel Munro, setting out from …

His name was Jean de la Fontaine. His father was the ranger of the forest of the duchy of Chateau-Thierry in Champagne. Jean was born there July 8, and educated at first for the Church. He truned, however, to the law but abandoned this on succeeding to his father’s rangership in 1647. He married the same year but soon separated …

Washington Irving, who had fought against the British in the War of Independence. He wrote many books, amongst them his Legends of the Alhambra and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. But it is Rip Van Winkle for which he is best remembered today. Born on April 3, 1783, he died November 28, 1859, already regarded as an author of note …

He was Edward George Earle Bulwe-Lytton, first Baron Lytton who was born on May 25, 1803. Although his works were admired by Charles Dickens and were popular in his time, they are not often read today. Four of his most famous books are entitled The Last Days of Pompeii, Rienzi, The Last of the Roman Tribunes, The Last of the …

He was an American author whose real name was William Sydney Porter. He was born September 11, 1862, in the quiet little village of Greensboro in North Carolina. He fell ill with a bad lung in 1882 and left North Carolina for a ranch in Texas where he worked as a cowboy. He recovered his health and later worked as …