Herbert Best

Born in Chester, England, in 1894, Oswald Herbert Best studied at The King’s School, Chester, and Queen’s College, Cambridge. During and after the First World War, he served in Nigeria, an experience that later fed into several of his books and helped give his writing its vivid settings and practical detail.

Writing as Herbert Best, he became known mainly for children’s and young adult adventure stories, including books set in West Africa, and he also wrote science fiction. His work ranges from realistic tales for younger readers to speculative stories, showing an author comfortable moving between action, travel, and imagination.

Best spent part of his later life in the United States and is remembered as a British-American writer whose career bridged children’s literature and genre fiction. He died in 1980, but his books still attract readers interested in classic adventure writing and early twentieth-century science fiction.