Eden Phillpotts

Notable Works

• The Statue: A Story of International Intrigue and Mystery, with Arnold Bennett (1908)
• Widecombe Fair (1913)
• Stormbury, A Story of Devon (1932)

About

Eden Phillpotts was born on 4 November 1862 in India. His father Henry was an officer in the Indian Army, his mother Adelaide was the daughter of an Indian Civil Service office posted in Madras. Widowed at 21, Adelaide returned to England with three small sons, of whom Eden was the eldest, and settled in Devon. Phillpotts was educated at Mannamead School in Plymouth and in 1879, aged 17, he went to London as a clerk. His ambition was to be an actor, and he attended evening classes before realising he would never make a name for himself. He left the insurance company to concentrate on writing while working as an assistant editor for Black and White magazine. Phillpotts maintained a steady output of three or four books a year for the next half-century, producing poetry, short stories, novels, plays and mystery tales. Many were about rural Devon life and used regional dialects. Phillpotts was president of the Dartmoor Preservation Association for several years. One of his Dartmoor-set novels, Widecombe Fair (1913) provided the scenario for his comic play The Farmer’s Wife (1916), adapted as a 1928 silent film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Phillpotts wrote 132 novels, including crime, thriller, fantasy and science fiction; 25 volumes of short fiction; 24 books of poetry; 27 plays; 14 non-fiction books; and five omnibus editions of collected plays or novel trilogies, including a series set within various industries. He published some of his mystery novels under the pseudonym Harrington Hext. Jorge Luis Borges was an admirer of his work. Phillpotts co-wrote several plays with his daughter Adelaide Phillpotts (1896-1993), a novelist, poet and playwright. After her marriage at 55, she left her father and revealed in a 1976 interview after he had died, that their relationship had been incestuous. She contrasted his controlling “love” by saying she loved him only as a father but complied with his demands. Agatha Christie – a childhood friend of Adelaide – and Phillpotts’ neighbour, dedicated her 1932 novel Peril at End House to him and expressed gratitude for his early advice when she began writing as a girl.

Legacy

His gift of Copyright to the RLF from his literary estate helps support future generations of writers.