author
Richard Dallas
1860–1924
A shadowy early-1900s mystery writer best known for A Master Hand, a crime novel set against the atmosphere of New York in the 1880s. Little is firmly documented about the person behind the name, which only adds to the book’s old-fashioned air of intrigue.
1 Audiobook
A master hand : The story of a crime
by Richard Dallas
About the author
Richard Dallas is the name attached to A Master Hand: The Story of a Crime, first published in 1903. Modern public-domain and audiobook sources consistently identify Dallas as a mystery writer active in the early twentieth century, and they note that the name was apparently a pseudonym.
The strongest recurring lead is that Richard Dallas was probably Nathan Winslow Williams, an American lawyer born in 1860. That identification is presented cautiously rather than as a settled fact, so it is best treated as likely but not fully confirmed.
What is clear is the lasting appeal of A Master Hand. More than a century after publication, the novel has remained in circulation through public-domain archives and audiobook projects, where readers still enjoy its mix of courtroom drama, urban atmosphere, and classic crime-story suspense.