JAMES STIRLING

    Dan Brown (1964 -)

   Best selling author Dan Brown is famous for his thriller fiction Novels, and became World famous for his 2003 bestselling novel ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and the 2000 bestselling novel ‘Angels & Demons.’ Dan is interested in cryptography, keys, and codes, which are a recurring theme in his stories. Currently his novels have been translated into more than 40 languages.

  What many people do not know, is that Brown started out as a pop singer and pianist, and taught school for a living before he took to writing blockbuster novels.

  After graduating from Amherst, Brown dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled Synth Animals which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. He then formed his own record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School.

  While in Los Angeles he joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, a woman 12 years his senior, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with individuals who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Blythe would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, a location near North Conway, New Hampshire.

   In 1993, Brown released the self-titled CD Dan Brown, which included songs such as "976-Love" and "If You Believe in Love".

   Brown and Blythe moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls.

   In 1994, Dan released a CD entitled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless co - writer, co - producer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist."

This CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad "All I Believe." Also in 1994, while on holiday in Tahiti, he read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and decided that he could do better. He started work on Digital Fortress, and also co-wrote a humor book with his wife, 187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown" (one of the 187 items in the book was "Men who write self-help books for women"). The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright is attributed to Dan Brown. It sold a few thousand copies before going out of print.

   Then In 1996, Dan Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. ‘Digital Fortress’ was published in 1998. Blythe did much of the book's promotion, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and setting up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released The Bald Book, another humor book. It was officially credited to his wife, though a representative of the publisher said that it was primarily written by Brown.

   Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings; but the fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a runaway bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is now credited with being one of the most popular books of all time, with 60.5 million copies sold worldwide as of 2006. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004, all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at No.12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at US$76.5 million. The Times estimated his income from 'Da Vinci Code' sales as $250 million.

Characters in Brown's books are often named after real people in his life. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who created the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and novel. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is named after "On A Claire Day" cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca. In the Vatican Archives, Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents. Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman, is named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Brown also said that characters were based on a New Hampshire librarian, and a French teacher at Exeter, Andre Vernet.

  In interviews, Brown has said that his wife is an art historian and painter. When they met, she was the Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in Los Angeles. During the 2006 lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement in The Da Vinci Code, information was introduced at trial which showed that Blythe did indeed do a great deal of research for the book. In one article, she was described as "chief researcher".

In 2006, Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was released as a film by Columbia Pictures, with director Ron Howard; the film starred Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu, and Sir Ian McKellen as Sir Leigh Teabing. It was considered one of the most anticipated films of the year, and was used to launch the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, though it received overall poor reviews. It was later listed as one of the worst films of 2006, but also the second highest grossing film of the year, pulling in $750 million USD worldwide. The next film, Angels & Demons, is due for release on May 15, 2009, with Howard and Hanks returning.

Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film The Da Vinci Code, and also created additional codes for the film. One of his songs, "Phiano", which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack. In the film, Brown and his wife can be seen in the background of one of the early book signing scenes.

This is but a brief description of Dan Brown’s work. You can find more in depth information by going to his official website at   http://www.danbrown.com/

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Michael Crighton 1942 -2008)

Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, in 1942. After graduating from the Harvard Medical School he embarked on a career as a writer and filmmaker. Called "the father of the techno-thriller," his novels include The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Jurassic Park, and Timeline. He has also written four books of non-fiction, including Five Patients, Travels, and Jasper Johns.

His books have been translated into thirty languages. Eleven have been made into films, including Jurassic Park and most recently, Thirteenth Warrior. He is also the creator of the television series ER. Michael has directed six films, among them Westworld, Coma, and The Great Train Robbery. Always interested in computers, he once ran a software company named FilmTrack, and also made a computer game called Amazon. His film, Westworld, has the distinction of being the first feature film to employ digitized images, made back in 1973.

In 1965 Crichton was a visiting lecturer in anthropology at Cambridge University in the UK. Crichton also won a Henry Russell Shaw Fellowship, and travelled exclusively in Europe, and North Africa for a year.

Upon his return to the States, Crichton began training as a doctor. He eventually graduated with his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1969, but never became a licensed practitioner of medicine.

Crichton paid his way through medical school by writing thrillers under different names. Under the name John Lange, he wrote Odds On, Scratch One, Easy Go, Zero Cool, Venom Business, Grave Descend, and Drug of Choice, all spy thrillers. Another book written during his medical days under the name of Jeffery Hudson, A Case of Need, had many lightly disguised references to people at Harvard, and they were not all complementary. So, Crichton was in trouble when the book won the Edgar Award for the Best Mystery of the Year. He claims that grades at Harvard were given according to people’s informal opinion of the student.

During his final year at medical school The Andromeda Strain was published. It was a best-seller, and Crichton sold it to Hollywood.

MC then served (1969-70) as a postdoctoral fellow at the Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Science in La Jolla, California, before taking up writing full time.

His tightly plotted, briskly written stories immerse the reader in the cutting edge of science, technology, and culture. He is meticulous in his research, and he makes excellent use of it. As Time Magazine wrote, "Michael Crichton didn't really have to get the science right to make sure 'The Lost World' would be a bestseller. But he got the science right anyway."

Besides the Edgar Award for A Case of Need, Crichton also won the Mystery Writer's of America Edgar Award in 1980 for The Great Train Robbery.

Crichton has also directed seven movies; including Westworld, Coma, and The Great Train Robbery. In 1972 two of Crichton’s books were made into films. One, called Dealing, was co-written with his brother Douglas, and made into the movie Dealing. A Case of Need was released in film as The Carey Treatment.

After watching the filming of these two movies, Crichton decided to try his hand at directing. Other books of his that have been made into movies include The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, and Rising Sun. He has also written many screenplays, including the hit Twister, which was co-written by his wife, and later made into a movie.

Crichton is also the Creator and Executive Producer of the television series ER, which he actually created right after his medical days. In 1995, ER won eight emmys, and Crichton himself received an award from the Producers Guild of America in the category of outstanding multi-episodic series. Later that year, he also was honoured with the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award for ER.

Crichton is a computer expert, and wrote one of the first books about information technology (Electronic Life, 1983). He once indulged his interest in computers by operating a software company, FilmTrack, which has been used by major studios to perform budgeting and scheduling functions for film and television projects. He also created a computer game called Amazon in 1982. His 1973 film Westworld was one of the first feature films to use digitized images. In 1994, Crichton also won an Oscar for Technical Achievement (Scientific and Technical Award).

Michael Crichton is also a collector of modern art and an accomplished traveller. In fact, he has written a non-fiction biography of Jasper Johns, a contemporary artist, and a partial auto-biography, called Travels, about his many travels across the globe.

Visit   The Official Michael Crichton Web Site

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Tom Clancy (1947- )

Tom Clancy was born April 12, 1947 at Franklin Square Hospital, in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Maryland, graduating with the class of 1965.

Clancy studied English Literature at Loyola College in Baltimore, graduating with the class of 1969.  He once said about this, "I wasn't smart enough to do physics." Before making his literary debut, he spent some time running an independent insurance business. But his true talent was to come when he began writing Novels with acute attention to detail, such as:

The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears have been turned into commercially successful films with actors such as Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck as Clancy's most famous character Jack Ryan. As with many movie adaptations of popular novels, there is controversy amongst fans concerning the (non-)canonicity of the movies, most of which take fairly extensive liberties with the original plot. Recently, there have been talks about a movie based on the bestselling novel, Rainbow Six.

In recent years, his novels have become more political, showcasing his conservative philosophy. But he somewhat returned to his earlier approach with The Bear and the Dragon, which starts off as a political novel and metamorphoses into a war procedural two-thirds of the way through.

With the release of The Teeth of the Tiger, Clancy introduced Jack Ryan's son and two nephews as main characters. Presumably, he has retired Jack Ryan as a central character. Many fans have expressed disappointment in Clancy's recent fiction works and sales of his books have reflected the growing trend of readers turning away from Clancy.

Clancy has written several non fiction books about various branches of the US armed forces (see non-fiction listing, below). Clancy has also branded several lines of books with his name that are written by other authors, following premises or storylines generally in keeping with Clancy's works:

• Tom Clancy's Net Force
• Tom Clancy's Net Force Explorers
• Tom Clancy's Op-Center
• Tom Clancy's Power Plays.

These are sometimes referred to by fans as "apostrophe" books; Clancy did not initially acknowledge that these series were being authored by others, only thanking the actual authors in the head notes for their "invaluable contribution to the manuscript".

In 1997 Tom Clancy signed a book deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. (both part of Pearson Education), that paid him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books. He then signed a second agreement for another US$25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal. Clancy followed this up with an agreement with Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with the ABC television miniseries "Tom Clancy's Net Force" in an agreement worth US $22 million bringing the total value of the package to US$97 million.

All but two of Clancy's novels feature Jack Ryan and/or John Clark.

By publication date

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

• The Hunt for Red October (1984)

Clancy's first novel. Jack Ryan assists in the defection of a respected Soviet naval captain, along with the most advanced missile sub of the Soviet fleet. Movie (1990) stars  Sean Connery as Captain Ramius, and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan.

• Red Storm Rising (1986)

War between NATO and USSR. The basis of the submarine combat game of the same name, this is one of two Clancy novels to date not set in his Ryaniverse. He co-wrote it with Larry Bond.

• Patriot Games (1987)

Ryan saves the Prince of Wales from terrorists, who go after Ryan and his family. The 1992 movie stars Harrison Ford as Ryan, and has a fictional lord instead of the Prince of Wales.

• The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)

First appearance of John Clark. Secret anti-satellite lasers (SDI), high-stakes diplomacy, spies and computer geeks.

• Clear and Present Danger (1989)

Drug war in Colombia. Ryan and Clark finally meet; first appearance of 'Ding' Chavez. Movie (1994) stars Harrison Ford as Ryan and Willem Dafoe as Clark.

• The Sum of All Fears (1991)

Israel loses a nuclear weapon, which terrorists use to foment war between US and Soviets, which is averted by Ryan in a cliffhanger. The 2002 movie stars Ben Affleck as Ryan, and changes the identity and motivation of the terrorists.

• Without Remorse (1993)

Chronologically first book featuring John Clark. Set during the Vietnam war, tells how Clark became a CIA agent. Jack Ryan's father (Emmett Ryan) has a key role; Jack Ryan has a tiny cameo.

• Debt of Honor (1994)

Clark and Ding help Ryan avert (win?) a war with Japan; a Japanese pilot avenges his son's death by crashing his airliner into the US Capitol, killing the entire Congress, Supreme Court, and all but two White House officials, which segues into...

• Executive Orders (1996)

Sequel to Debt of Honor. Ryan, propelled into presidency, survives press hazing, assassination attempts and biological warfare -- Clark and Ding trace the virus to a Middle Eastern madman, and the US military goes to work.

• SSN (1996)

Follows the missions of USS Cheyenne in a future war with China precipitated by their invasion of the disputed Spratly Islands. Also not a Ryaniverse book, SSN is actually a loosely connected collection of 'scenario' chapters in support of the eponymous computer game.

• Rainbow Six (1998)

Released to tie in with the computer game of the same name. John Clark leads an elite anti-terrorist unit and averts worldwide genocide attempt by terrorists who are motivated by environmentalism. (Jack Ryan is mentioned, but does not appear.)

• The Bear and the Dragon (2000)

War between Russia and China. Ryan recognizes the independence of Taiwan and the US Air Force helps Russia defeat Chinese invasion. (Note: Like many such writers, Clancy's knowledge of China is lacking compared to his knowledge of the old Soviet Union, with many resulting weaknesses.)

• Red Rabbit (2002)

Back when he was a humble CIA analyst, Ryan aids in the defection of a Soviet officer who knows of a plan to assassinate the Pope.

• The Teeth of the Tiger (2003)

Features the rise of Jack Ryan's son, Jack Ryan Jr, as an intelligence analyst for The Campus, an off-the-books intelligence agency, following the retirement of Jack Sr. from the Presidency.

Note: This is the latest book of the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy, introducing his son and his two nephews as heirs to his spook-legacy.

• Amazon.com lists an untitled Clancy work for release in May, 2006.

By series chronology

Jack Ryan universe

• The Hunt for Red October (1984)
• Patriot Games (1987)
• The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
• Clear and Present Danger (1989)
• The Sum of All Fears (1991)
• Without Remorse (1993)
• Debt of Honor (1994)
• Executive Orders (1996)
• Rainbow Six (1998)
• The Bear and the Dragon (2000)
• Red Rabbit (2002)
• The Teeth of the Tiger (2003)

OpCenter universe

• Op-Center (1995)
• Mirror Image (1996)
• Games of State (1996)
• Acts of War (1997)
• Balance of Power (1998)
• State of Siege (1999)
• Divide and Conquer (2000)
• Line of Control (2001)
• Mission of Honor (2002)
• Sea of Fire (2003)
• Call to Treason (2004)
• War of Eagles (2005)

 Visit http://www.amazon.com/ for further details on Tom Clancy books

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Tennessee Williams (1911-1985)

    In the small town of Columbus, Mississippi on March 26, 1911, Thomas Lanier Williams, was born. He was the second child, and first son of Corneilious and Edwina Williams.

   His father was an international shoe salesman, a heavy drinker and a strong gambler. He too was going to become a drinker. He was gone a lot during Tennessee's childhood, and that forced him to spend enormous amounts of time with his sister Rose, mother, and grandparents.

   Despite the fact that Tennessee didn't like his father, he adored his maternal grandfather. At seven, Tennessee was diagnosed with Diphtheria. For two years he could do almost nothing. With this his mother wasn't going to allow him to waste his time just sitting around, so she encouraged him to use his imagination. At thirteen his mother gave him a typewriter, and this was to be a blessing, for his talent was about to unfold.

    His mother didn't approve of him playing with other boys, and he led a rather lonely life until he was of age to go to College in 1929. The first college he went to was the University of Missouri. His father didn't approve of his son becoming an author so, after his first year at Missouri his father made him quit and work in the shoe business.

   All he wanted to do was write, for it was his escape from the outside world. At times it would keep him up all night, and it made him exhausted, later on, leading to a nervous breakdown and a heart problem due to lack of sleep.

   After going into hospital for a while, his father agreed to let him attend the University of Washington, and it was there that he published his first papers. He didn't win the writing contest that he entered, so he quit and went to the University of Iowa.

   That is where he received the name Tennessee. The boys at the University knew he came from Tennessee, so gave him the nickname, and Williams decided to keep it. "It's better then being called Mississippi," he joked.

  Around this time he got his Bachelors Degree from Iowa, and Rose, his older sister had to endure a Frontal Lobotomy. This affected Tennessee Williams for the rest of his life, knowing that his sister wasn't ever going to be the same again.

  "The Glass Menagerie" has some biographical background to it, for in the story; Tennessee Williams is "Tom" and he is struggling to support his mother and sister, after his father leaves home a few year before. His form of escape is the movies, where he goes to find action and adventure. At the end of the story he leaves, just like his father did, and who never comes back.

   He dreamed of joining the Writers Project of Chicago, but was turned down. So he decided to pack his bags and go to New Orleans. He was an overnight success as a result of "The Glass Menagerie." But his eyesight began to fail him, and Williams had to painstakingly produce his plays one by one. He had many failures, but he never gave up. During this time he had to support himself, so worked as a Teletype operator, a poetry-recycling writer, and a theatre usher. But his luck was to change in 1943, when he began to write scripts, and won the Pulitzer Prize for his story "A Streetcar Named Desire." Many of his plays were made into movies and were hits.

    At one point in his life, he thought he had breast cancer and had investigative surgery. The results proved that it wasn't breast cancer, but a lump that had formed due to his heavy drinking.

   He also travelled to Europe, Africa, Mexico, and finally settled in Key West, where he sought psychiatric help to get his life together. On February 24th 1983,  Tennessee Williams died from an overdose of sleeping pills, and America lost one of its greatest playwrights.

Dedicated website at;      www.tennesseewilliamsstudies.org/

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ALISTAIR MACLEAN (1922 -1987)

     Alistair Stuart MacLean was born in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, April 21, 1922 and he was the son of a Scottish Minister. He was raised in the Scottish Highlands in Daviot near Inverness. He attended school at Hillhead High School in Glasgow. In 1941, at the age of 18, he joined the Royal Navy.

     During World War II he spent 2 and a half years aboard a cruiser as a torpedo man. After the war, he attended Glasgow University where he graduated in 1953 with an English Honours Degree. After graduation he worked as a schoolteacher, and taught English language and History at Gallowflat Secondary School in Glasgow.

    Whilst teaching school, he published a few short stories. One of his short stories, The Dileas, won a Glasgow Herald competition in 1954, and a suggestion from a publisher, William Collins, was that he should try writing a book.

    His years on the cruiser during World War II were the background for his first book HMS Ulysses, and his experiences with Russian convoys. This book was published in 1955 and instantly became a big seller and the first in a long list of best sellers.

    In 1960 Alistair MacLean wrote Dark Crusader, and in 1961 he published Satan Bug, using a pseudonym of Ian Stuart. In 1983 he was awarded a Doctorate of Literature from Glasgow University.

   Several screenplays were written by Alistair MacLean and several audio books were made of his books.

   Alistair died in Munich, Germany in February 2, 1987, and was buried in Celigny, Switzerland.

   Unfortunately, he was a alcoholic, and this was the cause of his demise.

.  After his death in 1987, he left behind several outlines for new books. The outlines were derived in 1977 as a series of film outlines, and there were 8 outlines dealing with the activities of 5 members of a fictional anti-crime organization that was part of the United Nations.

   Author John Denis wrote the first 2 books in the series, and Author Alistair MacNeill has written 6 books, using MacLean’s ideas. These books are included in the list of "Book Outlines by Other Authors".

   Alistair MacLean once claimed that he wrote fast, taking only thirty-five days to complete a novel because he disliked writing, and didn't want to spend much time at it. He also claimed never to re-read his work once it was finished and to never read reviews of his books. According to the New York Post, MacLean once explained: "I'm not a novelist, I'm a storyteller. There's no art in what I do, no mystique."

    Despite his disclaimers, MacLean's many adventure novels sold over 30 million copies and were translated into a score of languages. He was, Edwin McDowell noted in the New York Times, "one of the biggest-selling adventure writers in the world."

   MacLean's first success as a writer came while he was teaching school in his native Glasgow, Scotland, in the mid-1950's. A local newspaper, the Glasgow Herald, sponsored a story contest and MacLean's entry about a fishing family in the West Highlands won first prize. The story attracted the interest of an editor at the publishing house of William Collins & Sons, when he noticed his wife crying over a short story in the local newspaper and asked to see it for himself.

    It was MacLean's winning entry.

    The editor, Ian Chapman, enjoyed the story so much that he called MacLean and suggested that he try his hand at a novel. MacLean agreed. Over the next three months he worked evenings on the novel, H.M.S. Ulysses, drawing upon his years as a torpedo man in the Royal Navy. The novel came out in September of 1955 and sold a record 250,000 copies in hardcover in its first six months. It was to be the first in a long string of best-selling novels.

   H.M.S. Ulysses is based on MacLean's own experiences during World War II. For much of the war he worked on convoy ships delivering much-needed supplies to Britain, the Soviet Union, and other Allied nations. The work was perilous. MacLean was wounded twice by the Nazis and captured by the Japanese. The Japanese tortured him, pulling out his teeth "without benefit of anesthetic," as MacLean once remarked. The ordeal, Bob McKelvey noted in the Detroit Free Press "left him bearing a grudge against the Japanese until his death."

   The pain and hardship of the war at sea is evident in H.M.S. Ulysses, the story of a convoy in the North Atlantic which battles German submarines as well as the treacherous weather. "Even in his first novel," Robert A. Lee wrote in his Alistair MacLean: The Key Is Fear, "

   MacLean has an acute sense of plot and structure, and it is clear that he understands quite well the consequences of action as defined by the necessities of story-telling." Reviewers of the time found faults with MacLean's work, citing a melodramatic tendency, for example, but saw the novel as a forceful and realistic portrayal of the war at sea. E.B. Garside of the New York Times claimed that "this novel is a gripping thing....

  Mr. MacLean, former torpedoman, now a Scottish schoolmaster, has caught the bitter heart of the matter." Writing in the Saturday Review, T. E. Cooney maintained that "Mr. MacLean's true achievement [is] that of setting down in print the image of war, so that any reader, regardless of his experience, can say, that is what it was like."

   This "first and greatest work," as Martin Sieff of the Washington Times called H.M.S. Ulysses, was MacLean's personal favorite and the novel which he believed was his best work. It also set the pattern for much of his later novels. Its emphasis on men battling the elements as well as the immoral machinations of other men was to recur in all of MacLean's later books.

   Speaking of the clear demarcation between good and evil to be found in MacLean's work, Sieff explained that MacLean's "novels are imbued with a powerful, uncompromising moral vision-that there is wickedness in the world and that it must be recognized and fought to the death, come what may."

   Despite the success of his first novel, MacLean was too cautious to leave his teaching job. He suspected that the book's success might prove to be only a fluke. It wasn't until his second novel, The Guns of Navarone, appeared in 1957 to popular acclaim that he became a full-time writer.

    This novel, telling of a mission to destroy an enemy gun installation during the Second World War, proved to be "MacLean's most famous and popular novel," as Lee observed. It is, William Hogan remarked in the San Francisco Chronicle, "a tense, compelling, extraordinarily readable adventure."

    The book sold some 400,000 copies in its first six months and is still a worldwide best-seller. In 1959, it was adapted as a successful motion picture starring Gregory Peck and David Niven and produced by Carl Forman.

    After the success of The Guns of Navarone, MacLean moved to Switzerland, where he found the climate and tax laws to his liking. For a time he wrote one new novel every year. His usual writing schedule began early in the morning and lasted until early afternoon, working away on an IBM electric typewriter.

    "He never rewrote anything," Caroline Moorehead revealed in the London Times, "and resisted, with considerable stubbornness, even minor editorial changes proposed by [his publisher] Collins." MacLean's faith in his work proved to be justified. Once, after receiving the manuscript for a MacLean novel and judging it unsatisfactory, his publisher dispatched a representative to speak with MacLean about rewriting it.

    By the time the agent arrived in Switzerland, however, film rights to the book had already been sold and the rewrite idea was quietly shelved. "I don't write the first sentence," MacLean told Moorehead,  until I have the last in mind.... I don't even re-read. One draft and it's away."

    MacLean never kept copies of any of his books, preferring to give them away to friends and admirers. "I don't think any are very good." he explained to Moorehead. "I'm slightly dissatisfied with all of them. I'm pleased enough if at the end of the day I produced a saleable product-and that I do."

   By the early 1970s, MacLean's books had sold over 20 million copies and had been made into several popular films. He was one of the top ten best-selling writers in the world and arguably the one whose books were most often adapted for the screen. MacLean made enough money from his writings that at one point in the 1960's he gave it up and went into business as a hotelier, buying the famous Jamaica Inn and three other hotels. But he found running a hotel chain too boring. When a filmmaker offered him the chance to write a screenplay in 1967, MacLean accepted. The resulting work, Where Eagles Dare, was a bestseller and a successful film and MacLean returned to his book-a-year schedule again.

   The enormous amount of money that his adventure novels earned him never seemed to alter MacLean's lifestyle. Several observers noted that he lived frugally, content with few of the luxuries one might associate with such a successful writer. MacLean's frugality was in part the result of his innate caution.

  He had been raised in poverty and was always aware that his wealth might prove to be transitory. And, as Moorehead noted, he always felt "that it is morally wrong to earn so much." A writer for the London Times claimed that MacLean's "vast wealth lay uncomfortably on his conscience." At the time of his death in 1987, MacLean was living in a modest apartment in Switzerland, where he bought his own food and prepared his own meals.

   Evaluations of MacLean's career are often colored by the sheer popularity of his books, which moved some critics to see him as nothing more than a writer who catered to mass tastes. And MacLean's flippant dismissals of his work abet this view. One such critic is Reg Gadney. Writing in London Magazine, Gadney described a typical MacLean adventure as "a hero, a band of men, hostile climate, a ruthless enemy….

    The pace of the narrative consists in keeping the hero or heroes struggling on in the face of adversity. There's little time for reflection upon anything which does not contribute to the race: no characterization, merely the odd caricature: no subtlety of ploy, anything other than a fatuous one would get in the way. So the refinements are discarded and the narrative is a sprint from start to finish."

   Yet, at his best, MacLean moved other critics to praise his work. Tim Heald of the London Times called him the "Yarn-spinner Laureate" and "one of the country's most distinguished old thriller writers." Heald affectionately explained that MacLean "is at his best on the bridge of an indomitable British craft fighting its way through stupendous seas.

   The crew - and part of the plot - will resemble one of those stories in which an Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, and a Welshman say or do something incredibly characteristic. They will be united, not only against the appalling gale, but also against a number of perfectly filthy foreigners." According to Sieff, MacLean's strong points include his - in the earlier novels - powerfully compelling characters." Sieff maintained that MacLean "was also a master of black, biting wit - a quality for which he was seldom given credit."

   Most reviewers did credit MacLean with writing absorbing adventure novels, a task he performed with particular skill in such books as H.M.S. Ulysses, The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, and Where Eagles Dare. In a review of Ice Station Zebra, the story of a nuclear submarine in peril under the Arctic ice cap, a Times Literary Supplement critic maintained that "the story evolves in a succession of masterful puzzles as astonishing as they are convincing…. There is so much swift-moving action, so much clever innuendo and such a feeling for relevant detail that one cannot help but be fascinated by the mind at work here." Speaking of Where Eagles Dare, Anthony Boucher of the New York Times Book Review described it as "a real dazzler of a thriller, with vivid action, fine set pieces of suspense, and a virtuoso display of startling plot twists."

   Despite such appreciation of his work, MacLean always dismissed the value of his accomplishment. According to McKelvey, the author once claimed: "I am just a journeyman. I blunder along from one book to the next, always hopeful that one day I will write something really good."

   This appraisal of his work was not shared by Sieff, who ranked MacLean's H.M.S. Ulysses with "Nicholas Montsarrat's 'The Cruel Sea' as the greatest novel to come out of the maritime war." Lee concluded that "MacLean's books work best when he allies evil and the natural forces of violence, when he makes the structure of his novels an undulation of tension, release, and tension when he manages to twist his plots in such a way as to reveal parts of the mystery bit by bit, until a stunning denouement at the end.

    When all these elements mesh together in one harmonious whole, the result is adventure writing at its best." MacLean, according to Linda Bridges of the National Review, was "one of the best suspense writers around."

visit dedicated website:  http://www.whereeaglesdare.com/

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  Wilbur Smith (1933 - )

Wilbur Smith was born on January 9, 1933 in what was then Northern Rhodesia and is now Zambia. At the age of eighteen months baby Wilbur was struck down by cerebral malaria, delirious for ten days, and doctors warned that he could be brain-damaged if he survived.

Survive he most certainly did, and as he grew up he began to share his mother's interest in novels. Her tastes were wide-ranging but they included adventure novels, which the young Wilbur devoured. In conjunction with the magnificent environment in which he was growing up, these forays into the world of the imagination made him intensely aware of his surroundings: the wildlife, the vast open spaces, the freedom to roam the country – and the political tensions too.

Smith's desire to write first showed itself when he was a young man with his heart set on becoming a journalist so that he could chronicle the rapidly changing social situations of southern Africa. His stern, Victorian father, who never read a book in his life, had other ideas, however. 'Don't be a bloody fool,' he said. 'You'll starve to death. Get a real job.'

So Wilbur reluctantly became a tax accountant. His first marriage, at the age of twenty-four – 'Much too young' – ended in divorce. To alleviate the grimness of what he was later to call 'probably the lowest point of my entire life' Wilbur started to write fiction. Suddenly he had an escape from the realities of life and work, immersing himself in the lives and settings of his characters in a way that brought them to life so vividly for his readers. Suddenly, in a world where nothing appeared to be going right for him, he could be in control of everything.

This is how, while still working as head of the Deceased Estates Department of Salisbury Inland Revenue, writing by night and staving off sleep and boredom during the day, Wilbur wrote When The Lion Feeds. Immediately recognized as a rare find, with its gripping pace, passionate rivalries, and compelling atmosphere, it quickly garnered a lucrative Reader's Digest deal. Then film rights were sold and Wilbur realized that he could well be looking at a career as a novelist.

When he sits down to begin yet another epic, Wilbur Smith has no idea how the plot will develop. He believes this is what gives his work such powerful, organic life. The resolution to a story is sitting there in his unconscious as he writes, and with each turn of the narrative, events force characters to act and react spontaneously. 'I am pretty old-fashioned,' he says about his writing. 'I believe in the triumph of good over evil and that love conquers all. I haven't got really cynical.'

Africa is his inspiration. As he sees it, 'Events that took place on this continent centuries ago are still determining the lives of those who live here.' And it these events, whether in the limitless landscapes of southern Africa or in the mysterious ancient world of Egypt, that Wilbur places at the heart of his work. 'If you take one false step or say one wrong word, the spell is shattered,' he says, emphasising how vital to his work authenticity and detail are.

Now, with a long string of success to his name, Wilbur's life is based on a work-hard-play-hard cycle. So when he writes, he does almost nothing else from dawn till dusk for roughly eight months, beginning each new novel in February. That first flash of success with When the Lions Feed gave him what he so craved – freedom to write unhindered by the exigencies of office work, and time to develop his skills. And he has in no way abused those priceless gifts, sticking rigidly to the iron discipline of researching, writing and delivering on time.

Then, when it's all wrapped up – it's time to play. Diving and fishing in the Seychelles. Fishing and shooting in South America. Safaris in Botswana and Zimbabwe, as well as time spent on his own 60,000-acre ranch, which he has turned into a reserve, reintroducing species of wildlife that were there 300 years ago. A lot of time is spent travelling in Africa, too, to carry out the research that is so fundamental to his work.

 He normally travels from November to February, often spending a month skiing in Switzerland, and visiting Australia and New Zealand for sea fishing. During his summer break, he visits environments as diverse as Alaska and the dwindling wilderness of the African interior. He has an abiding concern for the peoples and wildlife of his native continent, an interest strongly reflected in his novels.

In his sixties, Wilbur watches what he eats and drinks; he no longer smokes, and he is in good shape, good enough, he says to go on writing until there are no more stories to tell.

Visit the official Wilbur Smith website to view his wonderful books;  http://www.wilbursmithbooks.com/

or his publisher's,    http://www.panmacmillan.com/  and type in 'Wilbur Smith' in their search box and all his works will appear.

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Ken Follett (1949-)

Ken Follett burst into the book world in 1978 with Eye of the Needle, a taut and original thriller with a memorable woman character in the central role. The book won the Edgar award and became an outstanding film starring Kate Nelligan and Donald Sutherland.

He went on to write four more bestselling thrillers: Triple; The Key to Rebecca; The Man from St Petersburg; and Lie Down with Lions. Cliff Robertson and David Soul starred in the miniseries of The Key to Rebecca. In 1994 Timothy Dalton, Omar Sharif and Marg Helgenberger starred in the miniseries of Lie Down with Lions.

He also wrote On Wings of Eagles, the true story of how two employees of Ross Perot were rescued from Iran during the revolution of 1979. This book was made into a miniseries with Richard Crenna as Ross Perot and Burt Lancaster as Colonel "Bull" Simons.

He then surprised readers by radically changing course with The Pillars of the Earth, a novel about building a cathedral in the Middle Ages. Published in September 1989 to rave reviews, it was on the New York Times bestseller list for eighteen weeks. It also reached the No. 1 position on lists in Canada, Great Britain and Italy, and was on the German bestseller list for six years.

For a while he abandoned the straightforward spy genre, but his stories still had powerful narrative drive, strong women characters, and elements of suspense and intrigue. He followed Pillars with Night over Water, A Dangerous Fortune, and A Place Called Freedom.

Then he returned to the thriller. The Third Twin is a scorching suspense novel about a young woman scientist who stumbles over a secret experiment in genetic engineering. Miniseries rights were sold to CBS for $1,400,000, a record price for four hours of television. The series, starring Kelly McGillis and Larry Hagman, was broadcast in the USA in November 1997. In Publishing Trends' annual survey of international fiction bestsellers for 1997, The Third Twin was ranked No. 2 in the world, beaten only by John Grisham's The Partner.

The Hammer of Eden, another nail-biting contemporary suspense story, came in 1998. Code to Zero (2000), about brainwashing and rocket science in the fifties, went to No.1 on bestseller lists in the USA, German and Italy, and film rights were snapped up by Doug Wick, producer of Gladiator, in a seven-figure deal.

Ken returned to the WWII era with his next two novels: Jackdaws (2001), a World War II thriller about a group of women parachuted into France to destroy a vital telephone exchange – which won the won the Corine Prize for 2003– and Hornet Flight (2002), about a daring young Danish couple who escape to Britain from occupied Denmark in a rebuilt Hornet Moth biplane with vital information about German radar.

His latest novel, Whiteout (2004), is a contemporary thriller about the theft of a deadly virus from a research lab. Set in the remote Scottish Highlands over a stormy, snow-bound Christmas, Whiteout crackles with jealousies, distrust, sexual attraction, rivalries, hidden traitors and unexpected heroes.

His next project will be the long-awaited sequel to The Pillars of the Earth.

Ken's papers are held in a collection at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, United States. These include outlines, first drafts, notes and correspondence, original manuscripts and copies of early books now out of print. He has sold approximately ninety million books worldwide.

Ken Follett is married to Barbara Follett, the Member of Parliament for Stevenage in Hertfordshire. They live in a rambling rectory in Stevenage, 30 miles north of London, with two Labrador retrievers called Custard and Bess. They also have an eighteenth-century town house in London and a holiday home in Antigua. Ken Follett is a lover of Shakespeare, and is often to be seen at performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. An enthusiastic amateur musician, he plays bass guitar in a band called Damn Right I Got the Blues.

He was Chair of the National Year of Reading 1998-99, a British government initiative to raise literacy levels. He is president of the the Dyslexia Institute, Chair of the advisory committee of Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) UK, a council member of the National Literacy Trust, a member of The Welsh Academy, a board director of the National Academy of Writing, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is active in numerous Stevenage charities and is Chair of Governors of Roebuck Primary School.

He was born on 5 June 1949 in Cardiff, Wales, the son of a tax inspector. He was educated at state schools and graduated from University College, London, with an Honours degree in philosophy. He was made a Fellow of the college in 1995.

He became a reporter, first with his home-town newspaper the South Wales Echo and later with the London Evening News. While working on the Evening News he wrote his first novel, which was published but did not become a bestseller. He then went to work for a small London publishing house, Everest Books, eventually becoming Deputy Managing Director. He continued to write novels in his spare time. Eye of the Needle was his eleventh book, and his first success. Around 90 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide.

visit Ken's official website at;  http://www.ken-follett.com/

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   Pulitzer Prize winning Author

Ernest Miller Hemingway  (1911-1961)

    Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. In the sixty two years of his life that followed he became a literary giant in the twentieth century. He captivated (and at times confounded) not only serious literary critics but the average man as well.  In today’s World he would be ranked as a superstar author.

   Ernest was the second Son of Dr. Clarence and Grace Hall Hemingway's six children; he had four sisters and one brother. He was named after his maternal grandfather Ernest Hall, and his great uncle Miller Hall.

  As a boy he was taught by his father to hunt and fish along the shores and in the forests surrounding Lake Michigan. The Hemingway family had a summer house called ‘Windermere’ on Walloon Lake in Northern Michigan, and they would spend the summer months there trying to stay cool. Ernest would either stand on the bank or in the water and fish the different streams that ran into the lake, or once in awhile from a row boat, were he could relax and contemplate on the natural beauty around him.

  Nature would be the touchstone of Hemingway's life and work, and though he often found himself living in major cities like Chicago, Toronto and Paris early in his career, once he became a successful writer he chose somewhat isolated places to live, like Key West or San Francisco de Paula, Cuba, or Ketchum, Idaho. All were convenient locales for hunting and fishing.

  He received his formal schooling in the Oak Park public school system and found most subjects boring, but did enjoy working on the high school newspaper called the Trapeze, where he wrote his first articles, usually humorous pieces in the style of Ring Lardner, a popular satirist of the time. Hemingway graduated in the spring of 1917 and instead of going to college the following fall like his parents expected, he took a job as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star; the job was arranged by his Uncle Tyler. who was a close friend of the chief editorial writer of the paper.

  At the time of Hemingway's graduation from High School, World War I was raging in Europe, and despite Woodrow Wilson's attempts to keep America out of the war the United States joined the Allies in the fight against Germany and Austria in April, 1917.

  When Hemingway turned 18 he tried to enlist in the army, but was deferred because of poor eyesight. Then he heard the Red Cross was taking volunteers as ambulance drivers, and he quickly signed up. Quitting his job at the paper on the paper, he sailed for Europe.

   Hemingway worked for the Kansas City Star for only a short period, but he learned some stylistic lessons that would later influence his fiction. The newspaper advocated short sentences, short paragraphs, active verbs, authenticity, compression, clarity and immediacy. Hemingway later said: "Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing. I've never forgotten them."

Hemingway first went to Paris then travelled on to Milan in early June after receiving his orders. The day he arrived, a munitions factory exploded and he had to carry mutilated bodies and body parts to a makeshift morgue; it was an immediate and powerful initiation into the horrors of war. Two days later he was sent to an ambulance unit in the town of Schio where he worked as an ambulance driver. On July 8, 1918, only a few weeks after arriving, Hemingway was seriously wounded by fragments from an Austrian mortar shell which had landed just a few feet away.

    He had been distributing chocolate and cigarettes to Italian soldiers in the trenches near the front lines when the explosion knocked Hemingway unconscious, killing an Italian soldier and seriously injuring another soldier nearby.

   Ted Brumback, one of Ernest's fellow ambulance drivers, wrote that despite over 200 pieces of shrapnel being lodged in Hemingway's legs he still managed to carry another wounded soldier back to the first aid station; along the way he was hit again in the legs, this time by several machine gun bullets.

   Whether he carried the wounded soldier or not, doesn't diminish Hemingway's sacrifice. He was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Valour with the official Italian citation reading: "Gravely wounded by numerous pieces of shrapnel from an enemy shell, with an admirable spirit of brotherhood, before taking care of himself, he rendered generous assistance to the Italian soldiers more seriously wounded by the same explosion and did not allow himself to be carried elsewhere until after they had been evacuated."

   Hemingway described his injuries to a friend of his: "There was one of those big noises you sometimes hear at the front. I died then. I felt my soul or something coming right out of my body, like you'd pull a silk handkerchief out of a pocket by one corner. It flew all around and then came back and went in again and I wasn't dead any more." His wounding along the Piave River in Italy and his subsequent recovery at a hospital in Milan, including the relationship with his nurse Agnes von Kurowsky, all inspired him to write his great novel A Farewell To Arms.

    When he returned home from Italy in January of 1919 he found Oak Park dull compared to the adventures of war, the beauty of foreign lands and the romance of an older woman, Agnes von Kurowsky. He was nineteen years old and only a year and a half removed from high school, but the war had matured him beyond his years. Living with his parents, who never quite appreciated what their son had been through, was difficult. Soon after his homecoming they began to question his future, began to pressure him to find work or to further his education, but Hemingway couldn't seem to muster interest in anything.

   He had received some $1,000 dollars in insurance payments for his war wounds, which allowed him to avoid work for nearly a year. He lived at his parent’s house and spent his time at the library or at home, reading. He spoke to small civic organizations about his war exploits and was often seen in his Red Cross uniform walking about town.

  Hemingway questioned his role as a war hero, and when asked to tell of his experiences he often exaggerated to satisfy his audience. Hemingway's story "Soldier's Home" conveys his feelings of frustration and shame upon returning home to a town and to parents who still had a romantic notion of war and who didn't understand the psychological impact it had made    on their son.

   The last speaking engagement the young Hemingway took was at the Petoskey (Michigan) Public Library, and it would be important to Hemingway not for what he said, but for who heard it. In the audience was Harriett Connable, the wife of an executive for the Woolworth's company in Toronto. As Hemingway spun his war tales Harriett couldn't help but notice the differences between Hemingway and her own son.

  Hemingway appeared confident, strong, intelligent and athletic, while her son was slight, somewhat handicapped by a weak right arm and spent most of his time indoors. Harriett Connable thought her son needed someone to show him the joys of physical activity, and Hemingway looked to be the perfect candidate to tutor and watch over him while she and her husband Ralph vacationed in Florida. So, she asked Hemingway if he would do it.

  Young Ernest took the position; which offered him time to write and a chance to work for the Toronto Star Weekly. And so Hemingway wrote for the Star Weekly even after moving to Chicago in the fall of 1920.

  Whilst living at a friend's house he met Hadley Richardson, and they quickly fell in love. The two married in September 1921 and by November of the same year Hemingway accepted an offer from the Toronto Daily Star to work as its European correspondent. He and his new bride would go to Paris, France where the whole of literature was being changed by the likes of Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and Ford Maddox Ford.  

    The newlyweds arrived in Paris on December 22, 1921 and a few weeks later moved into their first apartment at 74 rue Cardinal Lemoine. It was a miserable apartment with no running water and a bathroom that was basically a closet with a slop bucket inside. Hemingway tried to minimize the primitiveness of the living quarters for his wife Hadley who had grown up in relative splendour, but despite the conditions she had to endure, she was carried away by her husband’s enthusiasm for living the bohemian lifestyle.

   Ironically, they could have afforded much better. For with Hemingway's job and Hadley's trust fund their annual income was $3,000, a decent sum in the inflated economies of Europe at the time. Hemingway then rented a room at 39 rue Descartes where he could do his writing in peace.

   With a letter of introduction from Sherwood Anderson, Hemingway met some of Paris’ prominent writers and artists and forged quick friendships with them during his first few years. Counted among those friends were Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, James Joyce, Max Eastman, Lincoln Steffens and Wyndham Lewis, and he was acquainted with the painters Miro and Picasso. These friendships would be instrumental in Hemingway's development as a writer and artist.

   Hemingway's reporting during his first two years in Paris was extensive; covering the Geneva Conference in April of 1922, The Greco-Turkish War in October, the Luasanne Conference in November and the post war convention in the Ruhr Valley in early 1923. Along with the political pieces, he wrote lifestyle pieces as well covering fishing, bullfighting, social life in Europe, skiing, bobsledding and more.

  Just as Hemingway was beginning to make a name for himself as a reporter and a fledgling fiction writer, and just as he and his wife were hitting their stride socially in Europe, the couple found out that Hadley was pregnant with their first child. Wanting the baby born in North America where the doctors and hospitals were more modern, they left Paris in 1923 and moved to Toronto where he wrote for the Toronto Daily Star and waited for their child to arrive.

  John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway was born on October 10, 1923 and by January of 1924 the young family boarded a ship and headed back to Paris where Hemingway would finish building his reputation as a writer.

    With a recommendation from Ezra Pound, Ford Maddox Ford let Hemingway edit his fledgling literary magazine the Transatlantic Review. In recommending Hemingway to Ford, Pound said "...He's an experienced journalist. He writes very good verse and he's the finest prose stylist in the World."

 Ford published some of Hemingway's early stories; including "Indian Camp" and "Cross Country Snow" and generally praised the young writer. The magazine lasted only a year and a half (until 1925), but allowed Hemingway to work out his own artistic theories and to see them in print in a respectable journal.

 In the spring of 1944 Hemingway finally decided to go back to Europe to report the war, heading first to London where he wrote articles about the RAF and about the war’s effects on England. While there he was injured in a car crash, suffering a serious concussion and a gash to his head which required over 50 stitches.

  Martha visited him in the hospital and minimized his injuries, castigating him for being involved in a drunken auto wreck. Hemingway really was seriously hurt and Martha’s cavalier reaction triggered the beginning of the end of their marriage. Whilst in London Hemingway met Mary Welsh, the antithesis of Martha. Mary was caring, adoring, and complimentary, whilst Martha couldn’t care less and had lost any admiration for her man, and was often insulting to him.

   For Hemingway, it was an easy choice, and divorcing Martha he moved in with Mary Walsh.

   They openly conducted their courtship in London and then in France after the allied invasion of Normandy and the subsequent liberation of Paris. For all intents and purposes Hemingway’s third marriage was over and his fourth and final marriage to Mary had begun. He wrote, "Funny how it should take one war to start a woman in your damn heart and another to finish her. Bad luck."

   After the war Hemingway returned to America in March of 1946 with plans to write a great novel about the war, but it never materialized.

   The only book of any length he would produce about the war was Across the River and into the Trees.

  Banking on Hemingway’s reputation, Scribners ran an initial printing of 75,000 copies of Across the River and into the Trees in September of 1950 after it had already appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine in the February-June issues of the same year.

  Generally slammed by the critics as sentimental, boorish and a thin disguise of Hemingway’s own relationship with a young Italian woman named Adriana Ivancich, the novel actually contains some of Hemingway’s finest writing  - especially in the opening chapters. The critics were expecting something on the scale of For Whom The Bell Tolls and were disappointed by the short novel and its narrow scope.

   The productive years…

   From 1925 to 1929 he produced some of the most important works of 20th century fiction, including the landmark short story collection In Our Time (1925) which contained "The Big Two-Hearted River." In 1926 he came out with his first true novel, The Sun Also Rises (after publishing Torrents of Spring, a comic novel parodying Sherwood Anderson in 1925). He followed that book with Men Without Women in 1927; it was another book of stories which collected "The Killers," and "In Another Country." In 1929 he published A Farewell to Arms, arguably the finest novel to emerge from World War I. In four short years he went from being an unknown writer to being the most important writer of his generation, and perhaps the 20th century.

   While he could do no wrong with his writing career, his personal life had began to show signs of wear. He divorced his first wife Hadley in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer, an occasional fashion reporter for the likes of Vanity Fair and Vogue, later that year.

   In 1928 Hemingway and Pauline left Paris for Key West, Florida in search of new surroundings to go with their new life together. They would live there for nearly twelve years, and Hemingway found it a wonderful place to work and to play, discovering the sport of big game fishing which would become a life-long passion and a source for much of his later writing. That same year Hemingway received word of his father’s death by suicide.

   Clarence Hemingway had begun to suffer from a number of physical ailments that would exacerbate an already fragile mental state. He had developed diabetes, endured painful angina and extreme headaches. On top of these physical problems he also suffered from a dismal financial situation after speculative real estate purchases in Florida never panned out. His problems seemingly insurmountable, Clarence Hemingway shot himself in the head. Ernest immediately travelled to Oak Park to arrange for his funeral.

  The Cuba Years…

After returning from Spain and divorcing Pauline, Hemingway and Martha moved to a large house outside Havana, Cuba. They named it Finca Vigia ("Lookout Farm"), and Hemingway decorated it with hunting trophies from his African safari. He had begun work on For Whom The Bell Tolls in 1939 in Cuba and worked on it on the road as he travelled back to Key West or to Wyoming or to Sun Valley, finishing it in July of 1940. The book was a huge success, both critically and commercially, prompting Sinclair Lewis to write that it was "the American book published during the three years past which was most likely to survive, to be known fifty years from now, or possibly a hundred...it might just possibly be a masterpiece, a classic..." Oddly, the book was unanimously voted the best novel of the year by the Pulitzer Prize committee, but was vetoed for political reason by the conservative president of Columbia University; no prize was awarded that year. The book sold over 500,000 copies in just six months, and continues to sell well today.

   The next ten years would be a creatively fallow period for Hemingway, (it would be 1950 before he would publish another novel) but while he looked more interested in bolstering his public image at the expense of his work, he was actually immersed in several large writing projects which he could never seem to complete.

  The Last Days…

   Stung by the critical reception of Across the River and Into the Trees , Hemingway was determined to regain his former stature as the world’s pre-eminent novelist. Still under the muse of Adriana Ivancich, Hemingway began work on a story of an old man and a great fish. The words poured forth and hit the page in almost perfect form, requiring little editing after he’d completed the first draft. It had been a story simmering in Hemingway’s subconscious for some time...in fact he had written about just such a story in one of his Esquire magazine dispatches as early as 1936. Max Perkins periodically tried to persuade Hemingway to write the story, but Hemingway felt he wasn’t yet ready to write what his wife Mary would later call "poetry in prose."

   Hemingway often described competition among writers in boxing terms. He felt he’d been ‘sucker-punched’ and knocked to the canvas by the critics on Across the River and Into the Trees, but as if he’d been saving it for just such an occasion, he believed the fish story would allow him to regain his position as "champion."

  In September of 1952 The Old Man and the Sea appeared in Life magazine, selling over 5 million copies in a flash. The next week Scribners rolled out the first hardcover edition of 50,000 copies and they too sold out quickly. The book was a huge success both critically and commercially and for the first time since For Whom The Bell Tolls in 1940 Hemingway was atop the literary heap...and making a fortune. Though Hemingway had known great success before, he never had the privilege of receiving any major literary prizes. The Old Man and the Sea changed that, winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1953.

  Flush with money from the Old Man and the Sea Hemingway decided to exercise his wanderlust, returning to Europe to catch some bullfights in Spain and then to Africa later in the summer for another safari with his wife Mary. In January of 1954 Hemingway and Mary boarded a small Cessna airplane to take a tour of some of east Africa’s beautiful lakes and waterfalls.

  The pilot, Roy marsh, dove to avoid a flock of birds and hit a telegraph wire. The plane was badly damaged and they had to make a crash landing. The group’s injuries were minor, though several of Mary’s ribs were fractured. After a boat ride across Lake Victoria they took another flight in a De Havilland Rapide, this time piloted by Reginald Cartwright.

  Heading toward Uganda the plane barely got off the ground before crashing and catching fire. Cartwright, Mary and Roy Marsh made it through an exit at the front of the plane. Hemingway, using his head as a battering ram, broke through the main door. The crash had injured Hemingway more than most would know. In his biography of Hemingway Jeffrey Meyer lists the various injuries to the writer. "His skull was fractured, two discs of his spine were cracked, his right arm and shoulder were dislocated, his liver, right kidney and spleen were ruptured, his sphincter muscle was paralyzed by compressed vertebrae on the iliac nerve, his arms, face and head were burned by the flames of the plane, his vision and hearing were impaired..." Though he survived the crashes and lived to read his own premature obituaries, his injuries cut short his life in a slow and painful way.

Despite his ailments, Hemingway and Mary travelled on to Venice one last time and then headed back to Cuba. On October 28, 1954 Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but due to his injuries was unable to attend the ceremonies in Sweden. Instead, he sent a written acceptance, read to the Nobel Committee by John Cabot, the US Ambassador to Sweden.

  After 1954 Hemingway battled deteriorating health which often kept him from working, and when he was working he felt it wasn’t very good. He had written 200,000 words of an account of his doomed safari tentatively titled "African Journal" (a heavily edited version was published in July of 1999 as True At First Light), but didn’t feel it publishable and didn’t have the energy to work it into shape.

  There were no short stories forthcoming either and those he had written he put aside as well, disappointed with his effort. He was struggling creatively as much as he was physically, and as a way to satisfy his writing "compulsion" he returned to those subjects he knew well and felt he could write about with little struggle.

  In 1959 Life magazine contracted with Hemingway to write a short article about the series of mano y mano bullfights between Antonio Ordonez and Louis Miguel Dominguin, two of Spain’s finest matadors. Hemingway spent the summer of 1959 travelling with the bullfighters to gather material for the article. When he began writing the story however, it quickly grew to some 120,000 words, words that Hemingway couldn’t edit into short form.

   He asked his friend A. E. Hotchner to help (something he would have never considered in his prime) and together they succeeded in cutting it down to 65,000 words. Despite reservations about the article’s length the magazine published the article as "The Dangerous Summer" in three instalments in 1960. This was the last work that Hemingway would see published in his lifetime.

  Besides highlighting Hemingway’s increasing problem with writing the clear, effective prose which made him famous, his physical deterioration had become obvious as well during that summer of his 60th year. Pictures show Hemingway looking like a man closer to eighty than one of sixty. At times despondent, at others the life of the party, the swings in his moods, exacerbated by his heavy drinking of up to a quart of liquor a day, were taking a toll on those close to him.

  During this time Hemingway was also working on his memoirs which would be in 1964 as A Moveable Feast. Hemingway wouldn’t live to see the success of this book which critics praised for its tenderness and beauty and for its rare look at the expatriate lifestyle of Paris in the 1920’s. There was a control in his writing that hadn’t been evident in a long time.

  By this time Hemingway had left Cuba, departing in July of 1960, and had taken up residence in Ketchum, Idaho where he and Mary had already purchased a home in April of 1959. Idaho reminded Hemingway of Spain and Ketchum was small and remote enough to buffer him from the negative trappings of his celebrity. He had first visited the area in 1939 as a guest of Averill Harrimen who had just developed Sun Valley resort and wanted a celebrity like Hemingway to promote it. He had always liked the cool summers there and the abundance of wild land for hunting and fishing.

  But even the beautiful landscapes of Idaho couldn’t hide the fact that something was seriously wrong with Hemingway. In the fall of 1960 Hemingway flew to Rochester, Minnesota and was admitted to the Mayo Clinic, ostensibly for treatment of high blood pressure but really for help with the severe depression his wife Mary could no longer handle alone.

  After Hemingway began talking of suicide his Ketchum doctor agreed with Mary that they should seek expert help. He registered under the name of his personal doctor George Saviers and they began a medical program to try and repair his mental state. The Mayo Clinic’s treatment would ultimately lead to electro shock therapy. According to Jefferey Meyers Hemingway received "between 11 to 15 shock treatments that instead of helping him most certainly hastened his demise." One of the sad side effects of shock therapy is the loss of memory, and for Hemingway it was a catastrophic loss. Without his memory he could no longer write, could no longer recall the facts and images he required to create his art. Writing, which had already become difficult, was now nearly impossible.

  Hemingway spent the first half of 1961 fighting his depression and paranoia, seeing enemies at every turn and threatening suicide on several more occasions.

  On the morning of July 2, 1961 Hemingway rose early, as he had his entire adult life, selected a shotgun from a closet in the basement, went upstairs to a spot near the entrance-way of the house and shot himself in the head.

  It was little more than two weeks until his 62nd birthday.

visit: http://www.ernest.hemingway.com/

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 Nicholas Monsarrat (1910-1979)

Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat, son of a distinguished surgeon, was born in Liverpool in 1910. The family had a holiday home in Anglesey and it was there that early in his life he fell in love with the sea and with sailing. After getting a law degree from Cambridge he decided that the solicitor’s career for which he was being trained did not suit him. He went to London where he tried to make a living writing novels and journalistic pieces such as a regular restaurant review that supplied him with one good meal a week At this time he was an ardent left-winger politically and helped to sell The Daily Worker. As a pacifist he took part in processions in favour of pacifism.

The outbreak of war soon after the publication of This is the schoolroom served todistract people from art and literature, and the young Nicholas himself felt at once he must do his bit, despite his pacifism. At first he joined the St John's Ambulance Brigade, but soon he was so struck by the terrible things happening in many parts of Europe that, as he wrote in his autobiography, "he decided to help win the battle first and deal with his moral principles later." Answering an advertisment in the London Times he joined the RNVR. He saw a great deal of very perilous service escorting convoys, service described so graphically in The Cruel Sea and other war books he wrote. He ended up commanding a frigate. His distinguished war service and his magnificent narratives about Britain’s sailors were recognised by the nation when he died. He was buried at sea from a ship of the Royal Navy.

On leaving the RNVR in 1946, he joined Britain’s diplomatic service and was sent to Johannesburg in South Africa as an information officer. It was during his stay in South Africa that he wrote The Cruel Sea, the book that made him immediately famous and removed all his financial cares permanently. The book was filmed in 1953, the year in which he was transferred to Ottawa in Canada as British Information Officer. His sojourn in Africa was to provide the material for two books, the bestseller The Tribe that Lost its Head (1956) and much later, a sequel to this book, Richer than all his Tribe (1968)

He wrote the first of these two books during his three years in Ottawa, another well-known book of this period being The Story of Esther Costello (1953) a striking novel about the manipulation of an Irish blind deaf-mute by her American guardian, and the girl’s tragic end. This book, which is a strong attack on unscrupulous fund-raising for charity in the United States, was also filmed subsequently.

Monsarrat was drawn to themes then regarded as too strong or scabrous, and he was sometimes criticised in the Press on this score. He was only being ahead of his time, except that his treatment was generally less explicit than that of our contemporaries. The two novels on Africa already mentioned were also strong meat for the readers of the Fifties and Sixties. The first, The Tribe that Lost its Head, contained a frank discussion of how a small and ill-prepared African country was allowed by Britain to become independent, while Richer than all his Tribe treated the topic of corruption among Africa's new leaders. The influential Times Literary Supplement said of the former that Monsarrat "on a large scale, and with fine attention to detail, succeeds in making the problems of Pharanoul of absorbing interest" and describes it as being "brilliantly effective in its technique."

In 1959 Monsarrat decided to leave the diplomatic service so as to dedicate himself to writing full time. By the end of his life, he had published twenty-eight books, including two volumes of autobiography bearing the naughty title, Life is a Four-Letter Word. From now on he produced book after book, most of them topping the bestseller list and two of them, The Kappillan of Malta and the incomplete The Master Mariner, ranking with his best work.

He was living in Guernsey in the late Sixties when his good friend Professor C.N. Parkinson, the academic who thought up Parkinson's law and who was also a novelist on the Royal Navy in Napoleonic times, told him of Gozo which he liked but thought it was "much too quiet."

It was precisely this comment that attracted Monsarrat and led him and his new wife Ann to buy a charming house in this charming village of San Lawrenz where they settled happily. One realises how happy the couple was when one learns that Monsarrat’s initial idea was to stay in Gozo a few years, not more than five, since he believed that a writer should be often on the move. The peacefulness of San Lawrenz together with his view of the sea and of the Gordan lighthouse from his office window attracted him so much that he was still there ten years later when he died

The Kappillan of Malta, which he dedicated to his beloved wife Ann, was written entirely in Gozo. It is certainly one of his most attractive books, its scale is impressive and of course it is eminently readable – a page-turner in fact. It has been read by millions and not just in English. I fondly remember the author showing me, during a visit I paid on him at his home, the many editions in translation of this novel.

It is not just another example of his great gift as a story-teller. The action-filled plot unwinds in townscapes and landscapes of which Monsarrat was fond, and the Maltese and Gozitan characters are clearly people who roused great interest in the author. It is worth reading with attention the book’s opening pages in which the author contrasts the Maltese and Gozitans travelling on the "Jylland", a boat most older readers will certainly remember, eating and having a good time, with a small group of British tourists looking at them and disapproving of what they saw. Surely this description hints at one of the reasons why Monsarrat was so drawn to Gozo and its inhabitants.

In this novel he emerges as a vivid descriptive writer, whether he is writing about the streets of Valletta in war-time, or of the countryside, or the tanker "Ohio" limping into Grand Harbour in August 1942. Many of these descriptions remain imprinted in the reader’s memory. Above all, however, this novel is the novel of Father Salvatore, the brave and kind-hearted kappillan of the title. The priest has an English father and a Maltese mother. Perhaps he unconsciously symbolises what Monsarrat felt about this country where he kept his English identity whilst feeling himself not just accepted but liked by the people of the community where he had set up his last home.

Like The Kappillan of Malta, The Master Mariner has an epic quality and it is truly a pity he could never complete it because of his last illness. He did publish the massive and impressive first volume the year before he died, and managed to write a small part of the second volume. Fortunately his publishers decided to publish this fragment, together with his plans for the rest of the volume and a fine introduction by Ann Monsarrat. The book was inspired by the famous legend of the Wandering Jew or that of the Flying Dutchman. It is about a British sailor who is cursed after having committed a very serious act of cowardice, a curse that dooms him to sail the seas for ever. Monsarrat uses this structure in order to show how much sailors have done over the centuries to discover the world, make it more accessible and police it. Here again he shows his skill as a historical novelist and, above all, writes the last chapter of the love story between himself and the sea.

He was survived by his wife Ann (he had been married twice before marrying her), a journalist at the time he met her, and an author herself. Her biography of the novelist W.M. Thackeray is not only perceptive but also very readable. She is very well known in Malta and Gozo’s social and cultural circles and since last year she has been very active as a member of the managing board of the Centre for Creativity at St James Cavalier, Valletta. 

All books by the author are available online at most major bookstores, or click on the novel you are interested in above and it will link you to the bookstore direct.

(I recommend you start with his ‘Cruel Sea’ and follow on with ‘Life is a four letter word’)

visit: http://www.merseyguide.co.uk/b_nicholasmonsarrat.htm

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   Ian Fleming  (1908 - 1964)  'James Bond  '007'

  There are many stories about this brilliant writer, for make no mistake about it Ian Fleming was a master in writing suspense. His creation of the ‘Bond’ character was unique because he offered something entirely different from any other author of his generation, or since.

  Anyone who has read the entire works of Fleming, and that includes not only his Bond Books but the children books too, (Chitty-chitty Bang-bang for one) will have realized that this was a man with exceptional creative talent. Having worked as a journalist for both Reuters and the Sunday Times and other organizations, he established his own style of writing that captivated his audience.

  His family were wealthy. His Grandfather had made his millions in Canada and the USA and his own father had been a serving British member of Parliament before being killed in action in WW1.Having attended several private schools in England, and being either expelled for bad behaviour or other reasons, his exasperated Mother sent him to a school in Kitzbuhel, in Austria

   It was during his stay at this school that he began writing, and on returning to the family home in England he failed the entrance paper for entry into the Foreign Service, so with his Mother’s connections, he joined the news agency Reuters as a journalist - winning the respect of his peers for his coverage of a 'show trial' in Russia of several Royal Engineers on espionage charges.

   He then briefly worked in the financial sector for the family bank, but just prior to the Second World War was recruited into British Naval Intelligence where he excelled, shortly achieving the rank of Commander. When the war ended Fleming worked for the Sunday Times, writing a column that soon had a large following because of his unique style of writing.

     It was during this period that he went on holiday with his wife to Jamaica, and falling in love with the island, he built a house called "Goldeneye". He negotiated a deal with the owner of the Sunday Times to allow him to take all his due holidays at one time, enabling him to retire to ‘Goldeneye’ for two months at a time. No other employee of that newspaper was ever to secure such a deal!

  Later, his wife related that it was during one of these extended holidays that Ian got on his bicycle and went off to the village, returning several hours later with a typewriter and paper. He shut himself in his room and did not come out except for meals, never saying a word about what he was doing. She assumed he was writing several articles for the paper.

  One morning she appeared for breakfast on the veranda and Ian was sitting there with a cup of coffee and a cigarette. He put down the bird book he had been reading, and greeted her.  She thought this was a little strange, for Ian was definitely the taciturn type first thing in the morning, but here he was cheery and making conversation.

 She noticed the pile of manuscript neatly piled on the edge of the table and inquired what it was, and he replied it was ‘just a piffling little story’ he had been busily typing away at.

 That night she sat up till 5am reading it, and at breakfast she told him it was a terrific Novel and that he should publish it. ‘What are you going to call your main character?’ she inquired. Glancing at the bird book on the table Ian replied, ‘James Bond’ And so his very first Bond Novel, ‘Casino Royale’ was created. (James Bond was the author of the Bird Book Fleming had been reading.

  After ‘Casino Royale’ had been published Ian decided to pack in his journalist job with the Sunday Times and retire to ‘Goldeneye’ in Jamaica and concentrate full time on writing his Bond Novels, with his British Secret Agent ‘007’ making him famous Worldwide. 

He was a heavy cigarette smoker (70 a day!) and had an unquenchable thirst for Gin and Tonic, reportedly consuming a bottle each day, and consequently this took his health when he died in 1964 at the age of only 56.

Other recorded information about Ian Fleming.

      It is said that he modelled the character of James Bond after Merlin Minshall, a man who worked for Fleming during WWII, as a spy. But others who knew him well say he modelled the bond character after himself, for he wanted to go on missions, but his superiors thought him too valuable in his job of sending other British Agents behind enemy lines in WW2.

    Fleming single-handedly transformed popular detective and spy fiction from the dark, middle-class heroes of Hammett, Chandler and Sapper, to the elegant world of his own, seen through the eye of James Bond, secret agent 007. Bond grew from the literary world of Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, E. Phillips Oppenheim, John Buchan and Sax Rohmer.

   In contrast to Fleming's desire, Bond's skill at high-stakes gambling (Casino Royale), his easy of knowledge of the best wines, champagnes, automobiles, and cigarettes made 007 an icon of class. From Dom Perignon to Mooreland's cigarettes, from Bentleys to Aston Martins, James Bond defines a certain elegant taste (Bond's original Bentley was a nod to Bulldog Drummond's identical car). The following excerpt shows how in Bond's world, an ordinarily generic meal like breakfast can turn into a remarkable experience: Fleming argued that he created Bond as "an interesting man to whom extraordinary things happen." Fleming appropriated the name "James Bond" from the author of Birds Of The West Indies because he felt the name suitably "dull"

Fleming's easy use of detail and brand-names to define his characters helped blaze a new style in popular literature where the real world and the fictional world collided.

While the James Bond of Fleming's writing expressed his fears and doubts about his missions and actions, Bond never expressed doubts concerning the attraction he felt for certain women. James Bond never paused before a kiss, nervously concerned with rejection. In fact, Bond's only real rejection in the novels (by Gala Brand in Moonraker) comes as a brutal shock. This inner confidence made both Bond and Fleming heroes of the more sexually open world of the 50s and 60s.

By 1960 Ian Fleming, James Bond, and Playboy magazine became a nearly synonymous cultural force, truly united with Playboy's publication of The Hilderbrand Rarity . The union of styles and tastes continued beyond Fleming's death into the mid-1960's.

Fleming's heroines, while certainly not paragons of feminism, are universally strong, and often tragic figures. Rarely damsels in distress, the "Bond women" (or more commonly, "Bond girls") tend to have their own agendas, solid strengths, and an ability to stand on their own.

Fleming's villains provide the author with great opportunity to explore larger themes. Through the gran schemes of Mr. Big, Sir Hugo Drax, Goldfinger, Dr. No, and Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Fleming wages a literary battles with the deadly sins. Sloth, vengeance, greed, and snobbery are but some of the dragons Bond must battle in human form.

Fleming's literary legacy continues to this day. Authors such as Len Deighton, Tom Clancy, John LeCarré and hundreds of others have all travelled the road Fleming pioneered.

visit: http://www.klast.net/bond/fleming.html 

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 James Herriot (1916-1995)

    'James Herriot' was a real Vet, and his practice was in Yorkshire, England

.   Because Alfred James Wight was a member of the Veterinary Society of Great Britain they would not allow him to use his real name when he started writing his wonderful books - as they looked upon it as 'advertising' his practice! 

    So he used the name 'James Herriot' as an author title for his books, and that has got to be the most famous name in the World of Vets, when combined together with the title "All Creatures Great and Small' from the famous BBC Television Series.

You can find out more about author Alf Wight by going to www.thirsk.org.uk/herriot1.html

You can also find  "The real James Herriot - The Authorized Biography' written by his son, Jim Wight,  at: http://www.amazon.com/  or http://www.amazon.co.uk/  PLUS!  all the James Herriot books and DVD's.

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Dick Francis (1920-)

Dick Francis  was born Richard Stanley Francis in Lawrenny, South Wales. The son of a jockey, he had a successful career himself as a jockey, winning over 350 races. During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force piloting fighter and bomber aircraft including the Spitfire. He left the RAF in 1946 to become a celebrity in the world of British National Hunt racing.

From 1953 to 1957 he was jockey to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. He was forced to retire from racing as the result of a serious fall in 1957. His most famous moment as a jockey came while riding the Queen Mother's horse, Devon Loch, in the 1956 Grand National: the horse inexplicably fell when close to winning the race.

His first book was his autobiography, The Sport of Queens (1957), which led to him becoming the racing correspondent for the London Sunday Express, a position he held for 16 years. In 1962, he published his first thriller, Dead Cert, which was set in the world of racing. Subsequently, he regularly produced a novel a year for the next 38 years, missing only 1998 (during which year he published a short-story collection). Although all his books were set against a background of horseracing, his heroes held a variety of jobs, from artist (To the Hilt) to private investigator (Odds Against).

He was made an Officer of the most noble Order of the British Empire in 1984.

The 1999 unauthorised biography, Dick Francis: A Racing Life, suggested that his books had in fact been written by Mary, Dick Francis' wife. [1] Whether this is true or not, by all accounts Mary did much of the research and editing of Francis' later novels and stories, and often worked collaboratively with her husband on each book's actual composition. Dick Francis himself has written no new works after Mary's death in the year 2000. However, Francis has announced that a new book, titled Under Orders (a racing term for when the horses are at the start and subject to the starter's orders) will be released in September 2006.[2]

Dick Francis' manager (and research assistant on the new book) is his son Felix Francis. Felix left his well-paid post as a teacher at a UK private school (Bloxham School in Oxfordshire) in order to work for his father.

Books

• The Sport of Queens (1957)
• Dead Cert (1962)
• Nerve (1964)
• For Kicks (1965)
• Odds Against (1965)
• Flying Finish (1966)
• Blood Sport (1967)
• Forfeit (1968)
• Enquiry (1969)
• Rat Race (1970)
• Bonecrack (1971)
• Smokescreen (1972)
• Slayride (1973)
• Knockdown (1974)
• High Stakes (1975)
• In the Frame (1976)
• Risk (1977)
• Trial Run (1978)
• Whip Hand (1979)
• Reflex (1980)
• Twice Shy (1981)
• Banker (1982)
• The Danger (1983)
• Proof (1984)
• Break In (1985)

         Bolt (1986)

• Hot Money (1987)
• The Edge (1988)
• Straight (1989)
• Longshot (1990)

         Comeback (1991)

• Driving Force (1992)
• Decider (1993)
• Wild Horses (1994)
• Come to Grief (1995)
• To the Hilt (1996)
• 10 LB. Penalty (1997)
• Field of Thirteen (1998) - short stories
  • 1. Raid at Kingdom Hill (The rape of Kingdom Hill/The race at Kingdom Hill)
  • 2. Dead on red
  • 3. Song for Mona
  • 4. Bright white star
  • 5. Collision course
  • 6. Nightmare (Nightmares) Nattmara
  • 7. Carrot for a chestnut
  • 8. The gift (A day of wine and roses/The big story)

o                    9. Spring fever

•  
  • 10. Blind chance (Twenty-one good men and true)
  • 11. Corkscrew
  • 12. The day of the losers
  • 13. Haig's death
• Second Wind (1999)
• Shattered (2000)
• Under Orders (2006)

      Official Homepage   of Dick Francis

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     Ronnie Barker (1929 – 2005)

Ronald William George Barker OBE (September 25, 1929 – October 3, 2005), popularly known as Ronnie Barker and (as a writer) Gerald Wiley {{ref|Wiley}}, was an English comic actor and writer. His best-known appearances were alongside his long-time comedy partner, Ronnie Corbett, in the very popular TV variety show The Two Ronnies; as Norman Stanley "Fletch" Fletcher in the sitcom Porridge and its BAFTA award winning sequel Going Straight; and working with David Jason in Open All Hours. His skills as a character actor, his love for and facility with the English language, and his gift for comedy made him a well-loved performer.

    Barker was born in Bedford in Bedfordshire. He began his show business career when he left his safe job in an Oxford bank to join the city's Playhouse Theatre, then under the actor-management of Frank Shelley. The two appeared together there, in Ben Travers's A Cuckoo in the Nest and, subsequently, in a number of other venues and roles. In 1993, Barker dedicated his autobiography to Shelley, whom he called one of the "three wise men who directed my career; without men like these, there would be no theatre."

He then worked as an actor and assistant stage manager with the Manchester Repertory Company, but was soon spotted by Sir Peter Hall who gave him a West End role. His first radio appearance was in 1956; he went on to play a variety of minor characters in The Navy Lark, a navy based sit-com on the BBC Light Programme (still available on tape and frequently rerun on BBC 7). On television, he wrote and performed many satirical skits in The Frost Report, notably a series of trios which he performed with Ronnie Corbett and John Cleese. He starred with David Jason as a bumbling aristocrat in the sit-com Hark at Barker. Both he and Jason are widely recognized as having an excellent sense of comic timing and delivery, which accounts for their enduring popularity. Jason appeared in several episodes of Porridge, and co-starred as the assistant to Barker's stuttering shopkeeper in the sitcom Open All Hours, written by Roy Clarke (who also wrote Last of the Summer Wine). Both Porridge and Open All Hours originated as part of the Seven of One series. Porridge ran for three series, two Christmas specials and a film, produced in 1979. Barker privately regarded the series as the finest work of his career. It was followed by the sitcom Going Straight which, while not as popular as Porridge, did win BAFTA awards. Open All Hours ended up running for four series and starred the characters nurse Gladys Emmanuel, tight-fisted Arkwright and "young" errand-boy Granville. He was also an accomplished comedy writer. He provided a good deal of the sketches and songs for The Two Ronnies, and contributed material to many other radio and TV shows—often under a variety of assumed names (most famously "Gerald Wiley"), so that his work would be considered on merit. His other credits include the (almost) silent films Futtock's End, The Picnic and By The Sea, the sit-coms His Lordship Entertains and Clarence, the plays Rub A Dub Dub and Mum, and the LP A Pint of Old and Filthy.

Barker made occasional TV appearances since his 1988 retirement, most notably to play Winston Churchill's butler—a "straight" role, but with opportunities for comic asides—in the BBC drama The Gathering Storm in 2002. This was followed up by a role in the film My House in Umbria in 2003. In 2004, he was given a special BAFTA award and announced his return to television—in early 2005, six months before his death, he reunited with Ronnie Corbett to present The Two Ronnies Sketchbook, a clip show of their sketches along with newly recorded introductions He was voted amongst the top 20 greatest comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders in a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian.

News of his death made headlines all over the United Kingdom and in countries with significant populations of migrants from the UK such as Australia and New Zealand. Ronnie Corbett said that throughout their many years working together there was never a cross word between them. He also commented that Barker was "pure gold in triplicate - as a comedian, writer and friend". Barker married Joy Tubb in 1957 and they had three children: two sons, Adam (b. 1967), also an actor, Larry (b. 1960) and one daughter, the actress Charlotte Barker (b. 1963). He retired to Dean, a hamlet near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire to run an antiques shop in 1987. He died in a local hospice from heart failure on Monday 3 October 2005, aged 76, with his wife by his side.

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