author
Erskine Childers
1870–1922
Best known for The Riddle of the Sands, he helped shape the modern spy thriller before his life took a dramatic turn into Irish revolutionary politics. His story moves from sailing and adventure writing to one of the most turbulent chapters in Irish history.
5 Audiobooks
The Framework of Home Rule
by Erskine Childers
The Riddle of the Sands
by Erskine Childers
War and the Arme Blanche
by Erskine Childers
German Influence on British Cavalry
by Erskine Childers
In the Ranks of the C.I.V.
by Erskine Childers
About the author
Born in London in 1870, Erskine Childers was raised partly in Ireland and built an early career as a civil servant. He served in the Second Boer War and drew on his experience as a sailor and observer of politics when he wrote The Riddle of the Sands in 1903, a novel often remembered as a pioneering work of espionage fiction.
Childers's life did not stay within literature. Over time he became deeply involved in the cause of Irish self-government and later Irish republicanism. He is also remembered for helping to run guns into Ireland on his yacht, the Asgard, and for working as a skilled writer and political advocate during the struggle over Ireland's future.
The final years of his life were marked by the conflict that followed independence. Childers opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, was arrested during the Irish Civil War, and was executed in Dublin in 1922. That combination of thriller writer, sailor, and political activist has made him an unusually compelling figure in both literary and Irish history.