Alice and Claude Askew

Alice and Claude Askew were the best-selling writing partnership behind many popular novels published during the Edwardian period. Their crime mystery classic 

J.B. Harris-Burland

J.B. Harris-Burland was a successful and prolific novelist of the early twentieth century, responsible for over thirty novels. Although Harris-Burland was best known for his fantasy stories, he wrote a number of mysteries and crime stories. 

Lawrence L. Lynch

Lawrence L. Lynch was the pseudonym of Emma Murdock Van Deventer, a best-selling mystery novelist from Oswego, Illinois, whose career spanned a thirty year period bridging the Victorian and Edwardian periods. A Blind Lead, her final novel, was published in 1912, two years before her death. 

Guy Boothby

Guy Boothby was one of the most prolific Australian authors of the late nineteenth century, writing over fifty books in a career that spanned a little more than a decade. 

John Finnemore

John Finnemore was a successful writer of adventure stories in the early twentieth century. Although many of his works were based around school stories and scouting adventures, he also wrote a number of mysteries, including The Secret Entrance, which was first published in 1907. 

Edgar Jepson

Edgar Jepson was a successful British novelist, known for his mysteries and thrillers. He was a founding member of the Detection Club, and an important literary figure in London during the early twentieth century. His mystery classic The Girl from Nowhere was one of his final books, published shortly before his death. This edition represents the first time this work has been returned to print in almost a hundred years, making the writing of Jepson available to a modern audience.

Edgar Wallace

Edgar Wallace was a prolific and well-known author of popular fiction working in Britain in the early twentieth century. In a writing career which lasted for little more than thirty years he produced over 170 novels, many of them thrillers and mystery stories. Whilst best known today for his screenplay for the film King Kong, Wallace was a respected and highly successful writer during his lifetime.

Our Preface Authors

Jacob Middleton

Jacob has been devoted to all things mysterious and strange for as long as he can remember. A lifelong Agatha Christie reader, he has read every single one of her novels, his passion for classic detective fiction led him to the wealth of lost mystery novels that inspired Lost Mystery Classics. He is also the author of Spirits of an Industrial Age: Ghost Impersonation, Spring-Heeled Jack and Victorian Society, a work of social history, and has written widely for the Fortean Times and other publications. Jacob holds a BA (Hons) from the University of York and an MA and PhD from Birkbeck, University of London. He is married to Emma Willoughby.

Favourite book: Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

Emma Willoughby

Emma discovered Sherlock Holmes at thirteen and never looked back. She went on to devour Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie, and Dashiell Hammett, along with detective writers too numerous to mention, and today maintains a beloved collection of obscure mystery hardbacks. Finding lost classics for fellow readers to enjoy is, quite simply, a dream come true. Emma holds a BA (Hons) in English and History from the University of Melbourne, an MA focusing on the 1907 Women's Work Exhibition from Monash University, and an MA in History from Cornell University. She is married to Jacob Middleton.

Favourite book: Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers