author
A. Eric Bayly
A late-Victorian mystery writer whose brief life left behind a single detective novel, remembered for its eerie atmosphere and old-fashioned suspense.
1 Audiobook
The House of Strange Secrets: A Detective Story
by A. Eric Bayly
About the author
Arthur Eric Cochrane Bayly, who wrote as A. Eric Bayly, was born in Bermondsey in late 1879. According to the Victorian Research guide to at-the-circulating-library authors, he was the son of Alfred Bayly and Esther Cochrane.
Bayly is chiefly known for The House of Strange Secrets: A Detective Story, published in 1899. Project Gutenberg lists that novel as his surviving work, and modern readers tend to encounter him through that book's later reprints and free digital editions.
His life appears to have been very short: the same Victorian Research source gives his dates as 1879–1900, while Wikidata suggests he may have died even earlier. Because the records available online are sparse, much about him remains uncertain, which gives his lone novel an added air of mystery.