Ernest R. (Ernest Richard) Suffling

Ernest R. Suffling, also listed as Ernest Richard Suffling, was a British author active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Surviving catalogs and digitized editions show a remarkably varied career: he wrote fiction such as The Story Hunter, Jethou; or, Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles, The Decameron of a Hypnotist, and The Fur Traders of the West, while also publishing nonfiction works including A Treatise on the Art of Glass Painting, Church Festival Decorations, Epitaphia, and English Church Brasses from the 13th to the 17th Century.

His books suggest a writer with wide interests and a practical streak. Some works are rooted in travel, local history, and the waterways of eastern England, including The Land of the Broads and The Innocents on the Broads; others show his interest in craft, church art, and archaeology. One of his later books identifies him as a member of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, which fits the antiquarian tone of much of his nonfiction.

Although he is not widely known today, Suffling's range is striking. He could turn from eerie storytelling to instructional writing and then to historical collecting, leaving behind a body of work that feels energetic, curious, and unmistakably of its time.