Arthur George Frederick Griffiths (9 December 1838 – 24 March 1908) was a British military officer, prison administrator and author who published more than 60 books during his lifetime. He was also a military historian who wrote extensively about the wars of the 19th century, and was for a time military correspondent for The Times newspaper.
Upbringing and career
Griffiths was born on 9 December 1838, at Poona, India, the second son of Lieut.-colonel John Griffiths of the 6th Royal Warwickshire regiment. After graduating from King William's College on the Isle of Man, Arthur Griffiths joined the British Army as an ensign in the 63rd Regiment of Foot on 13 February 1855.
Serving in the Crimean War, Griffiths participated in the siege of Sevastopol. He also fought during the capture of Kinbum, receiving the British Crimea Medal.
His later accounts of crime and punishment in England were "sensational and grotesque", designed to appeal to the baser fascinations of his Victorian readers. Their success led him to write some 60 books, many of them mystery crime novels, such as A Son of Mars (1880) and Fast and Loose (1885).
References
Citations
- ^ Forsythe, Bill. "Griffiths, Arthur George Frederick (1838–1908)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33581. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- XIX Century Fiction, Part I, A–K (Jarndyce, Bloomsbury, 2019).
External links
Media related to Arthur Griffiths (author) at Wikimedia Commons
- Works by Arthur Griffiths at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Arthur Griffiths at the Internet Archive
- Works by Arthur Griffiths at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
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