An Editor's Chair (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ...the terrace of a villa overlooking the harbour of Monaco. On the other hand, I learned from Mr. M. P. Shiel that he does not use his pen while the sun is shining, but during the night. A good deal of Mr. William Le Queux's writing is done at his villa in Italy, where he starts at four o'clock in the morning; Mrs. Marie Connor Leighton's at St. John's Wood in the winter and at Lowestoft in the summer; and Mr. Frank Barrett's MSS. were sent to me at different periods from places far apart--from Mentone, a country or sea-side retreat in England, Capri, and from a picturesque corner of France--always from some spot where, as befitted his cheery nature, the sun was shining. Serials were contributed from time to time by two novelists--Mr. John Bloundelle-Burton and Mr. William Le Queux--who are specially fortified for their work, the former doubly so. In writing modern stories--the kind I had from him--Mr. Bloundelle-Burton is able to look back on a succession of exciting adventures in early life; and for his historical romances he is not only steeped in knowledge of the great happenings he pictures, but is personally familiar with the localities where they took place. Close study of history, prolonged residence in Paris and other parts of the Continent, and wanderings over the greater part of the Western world have given him an enviable equipment which he has turned to the best account in both branches of fiction. Mr. Le Queux's life and profession are, in a sense, entwined. From his earliest journalistic days in London, he seems to have existed in an atmosphere of plottings and mysteries--subjects which have been prominent in his books ever since the first of them received the attention of the Press Bureau at St. Petersburg and was prohibited...