author
Man who dined with the Kaiser
A mysterious World War I-era writer best known for My Secret Service, an adventure-filled account of espionage, border crossings, and wartime Europe. Even today, the author’s real identity remains uncertain, which gives the story an extra layer of intrigue.
1 Audiobook
My Secret Service: Vienna, Sophia, Constantinople, Nish, Belgrade, Asia Minor, etc.
by Man who dined with the Kaiser
About the author
Published in 1916, My Secret Service presents itself as the firsthand memoir of a journalist and undercover operative moving through cities such as Vienna, Sofia, Constantinople, Nish, and Belgrade during the First World War. The book was issued under the striking pseudonym “The Man Who Dined with the Kaiser,” and that name is how the author is still generally cataloged.
Reliable catalog and archive sources confirm the work but offer only limited biographical detail about the person behind it. Contemporary notes attached to archive copies suggest the writer was reported to be a special correspondent for the London Daily Mail, and some reports speculated that he may have been Dutch, but those details are not consistently verified.
That uncertainty has become part of the book’s appeal. For listeners who enjoy memoirs of wartime intrigue, the author stands as an elusive figure whose reputation rests almost entirely on one dramatic, fast-moving narrative from the early twentieth century.