author
1858–1904
A late-Victorian English writer with one foot in sport and the other in imaginative fiction, he published poetry, stories, and essays while also helping edit a major reference work on games and field sports. His work ranges from verse and literary sketches to unusual speculative tales such as The Chariot of the Flesh.
Born in 1858, Hedley Peek was an English author, publisher, and sports writer associated with the Peek family of the biscuit firm Peek Freans. He is credited as Francis Hedley Peek in library and catalog records, and his career seems to have moved comfortably between literary writing and the sporting world.
Peek published books including Skeleton Leaves, The Poetry of Sport, and Nema and Other Stories. He is also linked with The Chariot of the Flesh, a curious early speculative novel that has drawn later attention from genre readers, and he served as an editor of The Encyclopaedia of Sport in the 1890s.
He died in 1904. Although not widely known today, his bibliography shows an appealing mix of late-19th-century poetry, fiction, and sporting literature, making him an interesting figure for listeners who enjoy overlooked Victorian writers.