E. Phillips Oppenheim wrote most famously of secret agents and duplicitous diplomats, secret treaties and international conspiracies, moonlit Riviera casinos, Swiss hotel suites, perilous yacht trips, and glamorous trans-European express trains. Known in his time as „the Prince of Storytellers,” Oppenheim, like the brand names of today’s best seller lists, offered readers in the first half of the 20th century a steady, predictable, and entertaining supply of pop fiction. „T...
This is a very early novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim from 1897. The wealthy and bored Lord Hildyard, Marquis of Esholt, is on a yachting tour with a group of friends, including his kept lover, Pauline Owston. When Hildyard spies an apparently uninhabited island, he slips off the ship in search of adventure. In the middle of the night, he hears wonderful violin music and finds a young and beautiful girl, Bertha, playing in the forest. She is accompanied by a cruel and misshap...
The Princess opened her eyes at the sound of her maid’s approach. She turned her head impatiently toward the door. „Annette,” she said coldly, „did you misunderstand me? Did I not say that I was on no account to be disturbed this afternoon? „ Annette was the picture of despair. Eyebrows and hands betrayed alike both her agitation of mind and her nationality.
General Besserley sat before his writing-table, drawn close up to the wide-flung windows of his summer-house, his pen clasped in his idle fingers, his eyes wandering though a tangle of drooping roses and clematis beyond the gardens below to where a car was crawling up the mountain road. He leaned a little sideways and touched a bell. In a few moments a white-coated butler opened the door and approached the table.
Uncommon Oppenheim novel tells a strong story of the complicated love affairs, thrilling and mystifying revelations in the life of a young occult. Mr. Henry Rochester is an honest and honorable landowner in rural England. One evening he is walking his estate when he happens across the boy who is meditating on a hillside, and after a conversation, takes it into his head to give the boy money and see what he’ll make of himself. Unfortunately, he also tells the boy that if he ...
Lady Wilhemina Thorpe-Hatton lives a life of extraordinary wealth and privilege. She is visiting her extensive estate in England, which includes the town of Thorpe, and all it’s inhabitants. When Victor Macheson, a young man chock full of ideals and theories about how to make the world a better place, petitions her for the use of a barn where he can speak on these subjects, she refuses. He is dismissed and harried out of town by the son of the estate manager Stephan Hurd. B...
This story takes place before WWI and follows the adventures of a disgraced English politician who hasn’t given up on his country in her hour of need. His nemesis is a suave but evil German prince who is plotting the downfall of he British empire. The only thing that stands in his way is our hero... and two beautiful women. „The Mischief-Maker” presents a fascinating picture of the political mindset of the day to go along with the twists and turns of the story. And so on, a...
„The Milan Grill Room” is a series of ten connected short stories featuring the character of Louis, a crippled veteran of World War I and maître d’hôtel, who solves crimes from his table in the Grill Room of the hotel and who is able to provide invaluable assistance to the British police and Secret Service. Tracking spies, catching traitors, uncovering plots, often in the company of Major Charles Lyson of the Secret Service, Louis is never ruffled, and always resourceful. T...
This is another great novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim, the prolific English novelist who was in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers and spy novels, and who wrote over a 100 of them. David Newberry is released from Wandsworth prison having served a year for burglary. He was briefly a member of The Lambs, a London gang run by Tottie Green, with the help of the beautiful, coarse, but alluring Belle. Vowing revenge, Newberry buys a gym...
John Peters is the dissolute Crown Prince of Bergeland. The nephew of the rapacious and immoral King. Grace Pellisier is an English American actress who meets a thoughtful, serious, hiker in the mountains of Switzerland. Bernhardt is the energetic Chief of the Secret Service, protecting the aging King, and constantly searching for „The Watcher,” the leader of the revolutionary republicans. Written during a period of intense anti-monarchy which saw the end of the Russian Tza...
If you have a fondness for mystery you should find this novel to be an entertaining read. Lord Alceston, the Earl of Harrowdean, statesman, philanthropist, nobleman, is murdered in his own study on the night of a great ball given at his home. On the same night a mysterious woman is murdered in the slums of East London. The valet disappears. Thus begins a moody and dramatic tale of love, jealousy, and revenge. This is the second published novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim and d...
„The Passionate Quest” is the story of Rosina, Philip and Matthew, who work in rural England in the glass factory owned by Rosina’s uncle. All three dream of a different life: Rosina wants to be an actress, Philip a poet, and Matthew hopes for a career in high finance. They all go off to London in „the passionate quest” for their dreams. This 1927 novel by Edward Phillips Oppenheim where problems arise in a family business. Oppenheim inherited a leather company from his fat...
In the courtroom of Lord Malladene, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Richard Lebur stands accused of murdering his lover’s lover. Lebur is convinced to change his plea to guilty to avoid a death sentence. At the last minute, as he is being taken to jail, he shouts out that he is innocent. Seven years later, Martin Campbell Brockenhurst, Viscount and ex-policeman, with Scotland Yard, pursues the case further, convinces that Lebur is innocent, motivated by his love for Leb...
This 1907 novel was one of the early popular novels of society by E. Phillips Oppenheim. The story revolves around the conflict between a gentleman’s obligation to defend the honor of a lady, and his responsibility to his own feelings, family, and freedom. Sir Wingrave, imprisoned wrongfully for killing a man, finishes his sentence and plans his vengeance against those who would not tell the truth to help him during his trial. He becomes misanthropic, seeking only revenge. ...
Captain Austen Rotherby is on a mission of revenge in Paris and chances upon Louis, the head waiter of his favorite restaurant. Bored, he follows Louis to a shady café where he spots a pair he’s long been intrigued by – a South American gentleman and a young girl. Because of certain complications, Captain Rotheby finds himself forced to leave Paris, only to find himself travelling with the aforementioned gentleman, Mr. Delora, and his niece, Felicia. Arriving in London, Mr....
Welcome to 1922 and E. P. Oppenheim’s „The Evil Shepherd”. A businessman is found stabbed through the heart, the obvious suspect his partner: Oliver Hilditch, a cold-eyed fellow with a paper-thin alibi. Francis Ledsam is a defense barrister and is congratulating himself on a brilliant performance which has just seen Oliver Hilditch acquitted of murder. His ego is pricked by Margaret Hilditch confessing to him that Hilditch was guilty of crimes far more monstrous than murder...
Mystery novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim involving a handicapped art collector. The book concerns recently demobbed and down on his luck Major Owston, who becomes the bodyguard of the deformed amoral art collector Martin Hews. Enabled by his enormous wealth to buy the world’s most beautiful works of art. Hews is plunged into a bitter rivalry with a gang leader simply known as „Joseph”. This is a thrilling and tense story of a struggle between master brains, of gang wars, of d...
Sir Joseph is a brilliant surgeon from Australia who went mad after operating on vast numbers of soldiers during World War 1. His terrible hobby is cutting people’s heads open to steal bits of their brains. His wife is a former nurse who went mad alongside him. They are pursued across England and the continent by Mr. Daniel Rocke, codebreaker of the Foreign service: Miss Ann Lancaster, daughter of one of Londe’s victims, and Sir Francis Worton, known as Q20, head of the sec...
Major Andrew Forester is a retired British Army officer, of no discernible occupation, who wanders about Europe, England and the United States. He is looking for adventure, but not outside the bounds of the acceptable. He is willing to skirt the law, but not break it. His peripatetic life style brings him in contact with scam artists, gold-diggers, art thieves, industrial spies, taxi dancers, and flappers. Sometimes he benefits from these associations, but at other times he...
Young Maurice Teyl, just turned 21, shy, non-drinker, non-smoker and the richest man in America, has been raised by his rigid Grandmother on a remote ranch in California but he shuns the limelight. So when a world tour is arranged by his guardian he is none too keen. He misses his train to begin the jaunt and meets up with a young English actress, Lucy Compston, and so begins a friendship and the slight deception, as he does not want her to know exactly who he is. He then g...
A novel of crime and conscience by Edward Phillips Oppenheim (1866-1946), the self-styled „prince of storytellers.” „The Profiteers” was written about the stock market post-World War I and pre-1929 crash. The tale of the Bechtel family dynasty is a classic American business story. It begins with Warren A. Bechtel, who led a consortium that constructed the Hoover Dam. From that auspicious start, the family and its eponymous company would go on to „build the world,” from the ...
A best-selling author of novels, short stories, magazine articles, translations, and plays, Oppenheim published over 150 books. He is considered one of the originators of the thriller genre, his novels also range from spy thrillers to romance, but all have an undertone of intrigue. The tiny kingdom of Theos is surrounded by Eastern European powers in this 1902 novel of politics, war, and romance. Russia and Turkey are plotting to take over the peaceful and rural country. A ...
In the sleepy little Devonshire town of Melhampton, the lives of the village stalwarts are revealed in this charming collection of tales by Oppenheim. Mr Tidd, the manager of the local bank branch, has invested his life and savings in the education of his daughter, but has dipped into the banks funds to „maintain appearances.” On the eve of quarterly bank examiners visit, he is confronted with guilt and exposure. In another tale, the town veterinarian is conflicted about hi...
A detective and very mysterious story. Mr. Sabin is called out of blissful retirement to search for his missing wife. He believes Lucille to be kidnapped by members of a secret society of aristocrats. It is interesting to watch Mr. Sabin control himself and walk with such dignity and aristocratic bearing and tact, even as he plots to save his own life and reunite with his beloved Lucille. „The Yellow Crayon” presents a fascinating picture of the political mindset of the day...
