author
A. Eric Bayly
A late-Victorian mystery writer with a remarkably brief career, he packed suspense, strange secrets, and Gothic atmosphere into the few books he left behind. His best-known work, The House of Strange Secrets, still offers the pleasures of an old-fashioned detective puzzle.
1 Audiobook
The House of Strange Secrets: A Detective Story
by A. Eric Bayly
About the author
A. Eric Bayly, whose legal name was Arthur Eric Cochrane Bayly, was born in Bermondsey in late 1879. Reliable modern reference work on Victorian fiction describes him as a very young writer who began publishing in his teens and contributing to periodicals before turning to detective fiction.
In just a short span, he produced several novels, including The House of Strange Secrets (1899), The Secret of Scotland Yard (1900), and Chronicles of a Country Cricket Club (1900). The House of Strange Secrets is the book most easily found today, and it has endured as a compact example of late-19th-century mystery fiction with moorland danger, family secrets, and a strong Gothic mood.
His career ended almost as soon as it began. According to the same reference source, Bayly died in London on March 27, 1900, after an operation for appendicitis, leaving behind the sense of a promising novelist whose voice was only beginning to develop.