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Full Details
M. P. Shiel
| Full Name: |
Matthew
Phipps
Shiell |
| Born: |
July 21, 1865
Monserrat, West Indies |
| Died: |
February 17, 1947
England |
| Occupation: |
Writer |
| Nationality: |
West Indian British |
| Links: |
|
Biography
Matthew Phipps Shiell (21 July 1865 – 17 February 1947) – known as M. P. Shiel – was a prolific British writer of West Indian descent. His legal surname remained "Shiell" though he adopted the shorter version as a de facto pen name.
He is remembered mostly for supernatural and scientific romances. His work was published as serials, novels, and as short stories. The Purple Cloud (1901; 1929) remains his most famous and often reprinted novel.
Shiell moved to England in 1885. After working as a teacher and translator he broke into the fiction market with a series of short stories published in The Strand and other magazines. His early literary reputation was based on two collections of short stories influenced by Poe published in the Keynote series by John Lane – Prince Zaleski (1895) and Shapes in the Fire (1896) – considered by some critics to be the most flamboyant works of the English decadent movement. His first novel was The Rajah's Sapphire (1896), based on a plot by William Thomas Stead, who probably hired Shiel to write the novel.
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