Harry Hervey

Born in Beaumont, Texas, in 1900, he grew up in a family that moved often across the American South. While still young, he began publishing fiction and nonfiction shaped by travel, and he built a reputation for vivid tales set in India, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific.

His career ranged widely. He wrote novels and travel books such as Where Strange Gods Call, Caravans by Night, The Black Parrot, and King Cobra, and he also worked in theater and film. In Hollywood, his stories and screen work became linked with movies including Shanghai Express and Road to Singapore.

He died in New York City in 1951, but his work still offers a window into a colorful, fast-moving kind of popular writing that crossed books, stage, and screen. Today he is remembered as a versatile American author and screenwriter whose adventurous imagination carried readers far beyond home.