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It is 117 years today since Leslie Charteris was born.
Leslie Charteris was born in colonial Singapore as Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin. His father, Suat Chuan Yin, was a wealthy physician and company manager who claimed he was related to an ancient Chinese imperial family. Charteris' mother, Lydia Florence Bowyer, was English. Young Leslie was educated at home and on the many journeys he made with his parents; he claimed to have toured the world three...
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It is 60 years today since Ferdinand von Schirach was born.
Ferdinand von Schirach is a German lawyer and author born in Munich to a wealthy Protestant family. He grew up in Munich and Trossingen. When he was ten years old, he was enrolled at the St. Blasien Catholic boarding school where he passed his baccalaureate in 1984. Von Schirach later reported that these formative years had made it hard for him to believe in God.
Von Schirach followed the...
Sample of Authors
Vidocq, Eugène François
1775 - 1857
Few people have had a life and a professional career to match that of the criminal, police officer, criminologist and...
Further reading
Spain, Jo
1979 -
The Irish author Joanne ‘Jo’ Spain was born into a working-class family in the little notorious residential district of Bel...
Further reading
Gulik, Robert van
1910 - 1967
Robert Hans van Gulik was born in Zutphen, the Netherlands, and grew up in Batavia (now Jakarta) in the former Dutch East...
Further reading
Blackwood, Algernon
1869 - 1951
The British author Algernon Henry Blackwood grew up in a strictly religious home in Kent. He soon abandoned his Christian...
Further reading