author
H. P. Holt
A little-known writer whose surviving books mix fast-moving adventure with firsthand-feeling colonial history. His work ranges from boys' fiction co-written with Ralph Henry Barbour to a detailed account of the Mounted Police of Natal.
2 Audiobooks
The mystery of the Sea-Lark
by Ralph Henry Barbour, H. P. Holt
Lost Island
by Ralph Henry Barbour, H. P. Holt
About the author
Little is firmly documented online about H. P. Holt, but the record of his books shows an author with a surprisingly wide range. Project Gutenberg lists him as the co-author, with Ralph Henry Barbour, of adventure stories including The Mystery of the Sea-Lark and Lost Island, suggesting a role in early 20th-century popular fiction for younger readers.
He is also credited with The Mounted Police of Natal (1913), a nonfiction history of the colonial police force in Natal, South Africa. That book gives him a place not just in adventure writing but in military and colonial history, and it remains the clearest sign of his interests and subject matter.
Because reliable biographical details about his life are scarce, the books themselves do most of the talking. What comes through is a writer connected to the storytelling styles of his era: brisk plots, travel and danger, and an interest in institutions and events from the British imperial world.