Edwin Lester Arnold

Born in Swanscombe, Kent, on May 14, 1857, he was the son of poet and journalist Sir Edwin Arnold and spent much of his childhood between England and India. He later studied agriculture and ornithology, then turned to journalism in the 1880s before building a career as a novelist and storyteller.

His books range from travel and nature writing to adventure and fantasy. Among the best known are The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician and Lieut. Gullivar Jones: His Vacation (1905), a tale now often noted as an early planetary romance and a forerunner to later Mars adventures in science fiction.

Although his fiction was not a major commercial success in his own lifetime, his reputation has lasted because of that imaginative reach. He died on March 1, 1935, and is still remembered today as a small but intriguing figure in the history of speculative fiction.