Charles Somerville

Charles Cecil Lee D’Montrol Somerville (1876–1931) was an American writer and illustrator from New Orleans. According to the Harry Ransom Center, he started in journalism as a teenager and worked at newspapers in Mount Vernon, Asheville, Philadelphia, and later New York City.

He built a reputation as a determined reporter, especially on sensational murder cases, and was nicknamed “the demon” for his persistence. That background seems to have fed directly into his fiction, giving his stories a brisk, dramatic edge.

Somerville also wrote and illustrated books of his own. Confirmed titles include The Shriek: A Satirical Burlesque (1922) and An Artist in Crime (1928), and library records also list works such as A Woman’s Way and The Master Rogue.