Biss, Gerald
Entry updated 17 February 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1876-1922) UK journalist with a particular interest in motoring or "automobilism" (his coinage), and a prolific author, active from 1901 or earlier; he began to publish of serial stories syndicated in many newspapers worldwide, five of which subsequently appeared as hardback thriller novels. The earliest known serialization venues are given here but may not be reliable. Biss's second novel The White Rose Mystery (1904 Falkirk Herald as "The White Rose"; 1907) is arguably sf, dealing as it does with a modern-day Jacobite rebellion backed by a foreign power and aimed at deposing Edward VII from the throne. The House of Terror (1906-1907 Grays & Tilbury Gazette as "The Undying Dread"; 1909) has familiar Gothic elements (in the east wing of the sinister mansion lives a half-man half-creature known as "the Horror", etc); The Door of the Unreal (1919) is a supernatural yarn set in Surrey, where several motorists disappear and the CID investigation discloses Werewolf activity. [SH/DRL]
Edwin Gerald Jones Biss
born Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: 1876
died London: 15 April 1922
works
- The Dupe (London: Greening and Company, 1907) [first appeared 1904 Falkirk Herald as "The Imposter": hb/]
- The White Rose Mystery (London: Greening and Company, 1907) [first appeared 1904 Falkirk Herald as "The White Rose": hb/]
- Branded (London: Greening and Company, 1908) [first appeared 1905 Peterhead Sentinel as "In the Shadow of the Scaffold"; also syndicated as "The Daughters of a Conflict" and "Who Killed Montagu Jerningham?": hb/]
- The House of Terror (London: Greening and Company, 1909) [first appeared 1906-1907 Grays & Tilbury Gazette as "The Undying Dread": hb/]
- The Fated Five: The Tale of a Tontine (London: Greening and Company, 1910) [first appeared 1907-1908 Lake's Falmouth Packet: hb/]
- The Door of the Unreal (London: Eveleigh Nash Company, 1919) [hb/]
nonfiction
- Motor Dicta: (Being Odds and Ends of Automobilism) (London: Greening and Company, 1909) [nonfiction: coll: hb/]
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