Photo: Hulton Deutsch/Corbis Historical via Getty Images (1949)
Sample of authors
Blackwood, Algernon
British writer Algernon Blackwood was born in the South East London district of Shooter’s Hill. In 1871 his family relocated to nearby Crayford. Both parents were stout Calvinists. In his teens, Blackwood broke away from their faith and embraced Buddhist teachings, thus forming a life-long penchant for oriental mysticism, occultism and theosophy. He studied at Wellington College in Berkshire a...
Literary figures
Boysie (Brian) Oakes
Gender: Male
He is recruited as a spy by mistake, and is regarded as tough, ruthless and bloodthirsty. In actual fact, he is an easy-going, forgetful and cowardly mummy’s boy, who hires gangsters to carry out the acts of violence he is ordered to do. This doesn’t prevent Brian ‘Boysie’ Oakes from making a career. It is simplest to describe him as a parody of James Bond, and John Gardner has written a suite of...