The website is now up and running. Our first book, THE STARKENDEN QUEST is in its final edit. As a teaser we are providing you with a short bio of the author, Gilbert Collins, by genre critic J.F. Norris. Enjoy...
Gilbert Henry Collins (1890 - ?) was born in Southampton, the son of Hariett and Henry Collins. From 1919 through 1922 he served as a member of the British Consular Service in China. He drew from his work experience and travels in Asia as the basis for several works of non-fiction including Sidelights of Song (1920 ), Far Eastern Jaunts (1922) and Extreme Oriental Mixture (1925). For a time during the late 1920s Collins worked for the humor magazine Punch. He served as the founder and chairman of Saturday Nights Swimming Club in Bournemouth where he made his home from 1930 to 1936. Eventually he abandoned memoir and travel writing for fiction, specializing in detective and thriller novels. Those works include The Valley of the Eyes Unseen (1923), The Starkenden Quest (1925), Horror Comes to Thripplands (1930), The Phantom Tourer (1931) and The Dead Walk (1933). In 1937 he was named in a lawsuit along with his publisher Ward Lock for using without permission the work of deceased writer Harold Scarborough. Collins never wrote another book afterwards. Shortly after the trial he left his home of Bournemouth and seems to have disappeared. A death date of 1960 is most likely inaccurate as it is for a completely different Gilbert Henry Collins who was born in London in 1861.
Gilbert Henry Collins (1890 - ?) was born in Southampton, the son of Hariett and Henry Collins. From 1919 through 1922 he served as a member of the British Consular Service in China. He drew from his work experience and travels in Asia as the basis for several works of non-fiction including Sidelights of Song (1920 ), Far Eastern Jaunts (1922) and Extreme Oriental Mixture (1925). For a time during the late 1920s Collins worked for the humor magazine Punch. He served as the founder and chairman of Saturday Nights Swimming Club in Bournemouth where he made his home from 1930 to 1936. Eventually he abandoned memoir and travel writing for fiction, specializing in detective and thriller novels. Those works include The Valley of the Eyes Unseen (1923), The Starkenden Quest (1925), Horror Comes to Thripplands (1930), The Phantom Tourer (1931) and The Dead Walk (1933). In 1937 he was named in a lawsuit along with his publisher Ward Lock for using without permission the work of deceased writer Harold Scarborough. Collins never wrote another book afterwards. Shortly after the trial he left his home of Bournemouth and seems to have disappeared. A death date of 1960 is most likely inaccurate as it is for a completely different Gilbert Henry Collins who was born in London in 1861.
