author
Roy Horniman
1874–1930
A prolific British playwright and novelist of the Edwardian era, he is best remembered today for Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal, the darkly witty novel that later inspired Kind Hearts and Coronets. His career ranged across fiction, theatre management, dramatic adaptation, and eventually screenwriting.
1 Audiobook
Israel Rank : The autobiography of a criminal
by Roy Horniman
About the author
Born Robert Horniman, Roy Horniman was a British writer, actor, and theatre manager active in the late Victorian and Edwardian years. Reliable reference sources describe him as a notably prolific author who published novels, short fiction, and plays, while also working in the theatre world as a manager and adaptor.
His best-known book is Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (1907), a mordant social crime novel whose afterlife became larger than the book’s original fame: it later served as the basis for the celebrated film Kind Hearts and Coronets. He also wrote other fiction, including The Sin of Atlantis, and remained active across several forms of popular writing.
Horniman’s life and dates are reported a little differently in different catalogs and reference sources, but the materials found here agree that he died in 1930. What stands out most is his versatility: he moved easily between the stage and the page, and his sharp, theatrical sense of character helped give his work a long cultural echo.