Beeding, Francis
Entry updated 31 March 2025. Tagged: Author.
Joint pseudonym of UK authors John Palmer (1885-1944) – whom see for his solo work – and Hilary Saunders (1898-1951) for numerous works in various genres, mostly detective novels and thrillers, both authors being in active service during World War One; each of their three Scientific Romances is a Near Future political thriller. In The Seven Sleepers (1925) villainous Germans are kept from starting World War Two; the "sleepers" are powerful financiers who remain in the background while the chief visible enemy is the sinister Professor Anselm Kreutzemark, a Scientist Villain who is adept in Hypnosis and Torture, and whose latest Poison gas (destined for London and Paris) can "destroy all forms of vegetable or animal life within a radius of 400 square kilometres". Lucky coincidences abound, including the Ruritanian touch that the English protagonist drawn by accident into the intrigue happens to be the exact double (see Doppelgangers) of one murderous German agent. In the sequel, The Hidden Kingdom (1927), Outer Mongolia is tempted faute de mieux by the now-fugitive Professor Kreutzemark to undergo Slavery (under him) in order to conquer the world. The One Sane Man (1934) is a final Scientific Romance, in which a man attempts to enforce world peace by threatening Disaster, in this case via Weather Control. Without Palmer, Saunders also wrote a fantasy, The Devil and X Y Z (1931) with Geoffrey Dennis, writing together as Barum Browne [see Dennis for details]. [JC/DRL]
see also: Crime and Punishment.
John Leslie Palmer
born Paddington, London: 4 September 1885
died London: 5 August 1944
Hilary Aidan St George Saunders
born Clifton, Gloucestershire: 14 January 1898
died Nassau, 16 December 1951
works
series
Professor Kreutzemark
- The Seven Sleepers (London: Hutchinson, 1925) [Professor Kreutzemark: hb/Henry Pitz]
- The Hidden Kingdom (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1927) [Professor Kreutzemark: hb/Lowenheim]
individual titles
- The Devil and X Y Z (London: Victor Gollancz, 1931) by Saunders with Geoffrey Dennis, writing together as Barum Browne [hb/]
- The One Sane Man (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1934) [hb/E P K]
links
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